Nonsense Botany :D

The limericks in this book are undoubtedly delightful and addictive to read. The silliness of them will engage children who have perhaps not heard limericks before and Lear's illustrations also entertain.

What typifies Lear's limericks is that the first and last line are usually the same or at least end in the same word. I personally find this entertaining but mostly because it annoys my father to realms of such irritation I cannot stop reading them aloud! However, I do agree there is something slightly unsophisticated about the rhythm of the rhyme.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Lear's limericks for the first time in this book as they are charming in their simplicity. Reading this with children in a classroom setting would be fun and would certainly inspire some silly attempts in creating their own.

Appropriately titled.

Lovely poems and charming illustrations.

“The Book of Nonsense” by Edward Lear was published in 1846, during the Victorian “Golden Age” of children’s literature, which was really the first time that books for young people were published for the purpose of enjoyment. Lear is attributed with having invented the Limerick rhyme form, and this book of a little over 100 short verses is a wonderful glimpse of not only his invention, but the historical period during which he wrote it.

I would recommend that the reader acquire a copy of this book with Lear’s original illustrations, because, in my opinion, they bear equal weight in the delivery of his witty punchlines. (I enjoyed this eBook version of it: http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/BoN/i...).

For a modern child, this book of poetry may not be entirely understood. There are references to disregarded historic names of people and places (which actually refutes the title “Book of Nonsense”). But if viewed as nonsense, the poetry will make clever children snicker at the sometimes questionable content.

I can't help but perceive many of the verses in this book as uninventive and contained. Perhaps this is due to having read poets whose work was influenced by Lear (Shel Silverstein in particular), who pushed the limits on nonsense even further. Thus, I kept my review of “Nonsense” under four stars. It is truly an artifact from the Victorian age, which is why, when googling such a telling title, children and parents are probably expecting something containing far more gobbledygook than is found in the pages of “The Book of Nonsense”.

I read this book of limerick poetry on Sunday, April 16, 2023
I’m not really sure how to write a review upon this book. It’s not my job or anyone’s job for that matter to judge or critique someone’s creativity and poetry at least in my opinion is the form of being creative.
I was more focussed review on how much I enjoyed the book and what I felt rather than on judging or critiquing his poetry
This was interesting. It’s nice to read nonsense sometimes rather than always focussing on more serious logical endeavors. I will say I wish it was more of a story. Rather than each story only being five lines I wish it could be verses for a song for example and there being many limerick that equal story. I’m not really too sure if that’s how proper limericks are but I think that would be an interesting twist to extend the meaning of the story even if it’s just foolishness
I will also say some of that or Charlie nonsensical. It’s not just the story being erratic and utopian even rather me not being able to understand them. It’s not hard English compared to Shakespeare in that sense but rather just random words strung together.
In regards to me recommending this I don’t know. If you’re interested to read someone’s poetry then read this but if you were looking for just any poetry book this might not be for you because of its nonsensical Ness. I suggest you read it it’s really short and that way you can create your own opinions upon his work and again everyone’s going to interpret poems in a different way and I feel terrible trying to judge it considering this is his creative outlet and wait for him to express how he’s feeling
So please keep in mind that I am visually impaired and solve any issues occurred I apologize sincerely

"Far and few, far and few/ Are the lands where the Jumblies live/ Their hands are green and their heads are blue/

And they went to sea in a sieve."

Probably wrong a bit here and there, but it's what I remember. I believe an intelligent, educated, wry mind works this way on opium.

"And when the sieve went round and round/ And everyone shouted, 'You'll all be drowned!' ... "

Well, it's for you to pick this gem of a book up and read it. A pleasurable diversion from serious stuff - unless you're a nihilist and consequently will find great meaning here.

I thought it was nonsense.

There once was a poet named Lear
Whose rhymes weren’t entirely clear
But admired for his wit
I have to admit
It’s a rhyme scheme to which I’m endeared.

That said, a book of Lear limericks is an amusing way to spend day 13 of #thesealeychallenge. That said, writing limericks has moved on from the way Edward Lear wrote them: where the ‘punch line’ is often a slightly amended version of the first or second line - for example

There was an Old Person of Tring,
Who embellished his nose with a ring;
He gazed at the moon,
Every evening in June,
That ecstatic Old Person of Tring.

First published in 1846 it is full of gorgeous little sketches to accompany each poem and a autobiographical nonsense verse which begins:

‘"How pleasant to know Mr. Lear!"
⁠Who has written such volumes of stuff!
Some think him ill-tempered and queer,
⁠But a few think him pleasant enough…’

It is delightful to read if in the mood for what it is - nonsense, though in this volume, only the limericks.
Stuff and nonsense, but delightful!

There was a Young Person of Smyrna,

Whose Grandmother threatened to burn her;

But she seized on the Cat,

And said, "Granny, burn that!

"You incongruous Old Woman of Smyrna!"




I'm sure this was hilarious a million years ago. First book I read on our iPad.

This is a collection of over one-hundred limericks by Edward Lear published in 1846. Limericks are a popular five-line poetic form with an A – A – B – B – A rhyme scheme, and in which the B-lines are shorter than the A-lines. Two types of material leap to mind when one thinks of limericks: humor and bawdiness. I mention this because neither of these subjects feature prominently in Lear’s limericks. While a number of the poems could be described as amusing, I can’t say I found any of them laugh-out-loud funny. I suspect that the number that are found amusing would be larger for a reader from the early 19th century due to insider knowledge that escapes the present-day reader (i.e. the activities and the perception of people from various locales have changed considerably over the years.)

As the book’s title suggests, what is on display in these limericks is nonsense. While that reads like an insult, Lear is considered to be one of the founders of the genre of literary nonsense. It’s not nonsense in the sense of Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” in which fictitious words are blended with real words to create a synthesis that is grammatically logical but relies on the reader’s imagination to create any meaning. Rather, the events and reactions on display in the poems range from absurd to impossible, but the meaning can be interpreted. As with the poems of a later nonsense poet of renown, Ogden Nash, some of the whimsy of these poems derives from contortionistic acts of mispronunciation needed to square the rhyme (though I may be overstating this as I don’t know how much Lear’s British accent from almost 200 years ago would differ from the way I read with my 2020 American accent.)

Needless, to say this is a really quick read. Most editions are between 30 and 60 pages long, with all the white-space one would expect of a book of five-line poems. If you are interested in Limericks or poetic forms in general, it’s worthwhile to see how Lear writes them. It’s a big help in developing an ear for the flow of the limerick. I found the book to be a pleasant read, though some of the limericks are cleverer than others. Some left me thinking that Lear could have done much more with the poems. Often the last line is a minor variation of the first line, and, thus, neither serves as a punchline nor as a source of new information. That sometimes felt like a missed opportunity. Still, it’s a nice collection of nonsense limericks.

fabulous.