I'm a huge fan of literary nonsense and absurd in poetry and prose so it was obvious that I will love Edward Lear too, and especially his limericks, a form he popularised. This volume, illustrated by the author contains his most popular poems and songs.

Like this


or


and
I
The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
'O lovely Pussy! O Pussy my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!'

É muito bom, mas o tema de old/young person acaba por se tornar repetitivo, quando acabou dei graças a Zeus.

the content matches the title

There was a Young Lady whose nose,
Was so long that it reached to her toes;
So she hired an Old Lady,
Whose conduct was steady,
To carry that wonderful nose.

Πάντα ήθελα να διαβάσω ένα βιβλίο με limericks (σύντομα σατυρικά ποιήματα πέντε στροφών). Ο Edward Lear (1812-1888) ήταν Άγγλος ποιητής και σκιτσογράφος, και ο πρώτος που καθιέρωσε αυτή τη μορφή ποιημάτων, τα οποία ήταν τρομερά δημοφιλή στην εποχή του. Όπως λέει και ο τίτλος, τα ποιηματάκια αυτά δεν βγάζουν κανένα απολύτως νόημα, και σίγουρα θα μου φαίνονταν πολύ πιό αστεία αν άκουγα να τα απαγγέλλει ένα χειμωνιάτικο βράδυ δίπλα απ' το τζάκι κάποιος μεθυσμένος εγγλέζος αριστοκράτης, μετά από ένα καλό κυνήγι φασιανού κι ένα γερό φαγοπότι. Διαβάζοντας τα μέρα μεσημέρι, ξεμέθυστη και μέσα στο λιοπύρι, δυστυχώς έχασαν μεγάλο μέρος από τη γοητεία τους.

To be honest, there wasn't enough nonsense.

When I was a child, I enjoyed Lear, but I read only a poem or two at a time. This book was "way too much of a good thing." If I ever read another "There was an old man from" or "There was an old person from" poem again, it will be too soon. He had several alphabets. Many used the same thing for the letters. For example, all used "Xerxes" for the letter "X." Why not a xylophone? In addition to poems and alphabets, Lear included some nonsensical biological drawings and a couple short stories. "The Owl and the Pussycat" is probably Lear's best-known work, and there's a reason for that. It's his best. Lear is best consumed in small doses, and this volume gives one entirely too much nonsense.

There was an Old Man of Moldavia,
Who had the most curious behavior;
For while he was able, he slept on a table,
That funny Old Man of Moldavia.

:)
page 12

IF you want to escape from the world of the mundane into the humorous look no further than picking up a copy of Edward Lear’s The Book of Nonsense and Nonsense Songs.
Lear was the inventor of the Limerick. The first time I read one was probably in 1964 or 1965 when I borrowed a friend’s English textbook which contained some of Mr Lear’s limericks. I immediately fell in love with them. Several decades later I started writing my own and thoroughly enjoyed doing so.

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The book is a compilation of two of Mr Lear’s books: The Book of Nonsense followed by Nonsense Songs. The first consists solely of limericks and the second of longer nonsense verses. Each limerick has a funny illustration right above it while each nonsense poem contains several sketches, not all of which are comical. The beautiful cover of the book has been taken from the limerick There was an Old Man of Corfu.
Lear travelled widely from Calabria to Corsica and from Italy to Illyna; from Egypt to Albania and from Greece to India. Sometimes you get the feeling that he is building amusing character sketches of people he actually met or at least saw during his travels. Or maybe they are just a figment of his imagination which he has no dearth of. Some limericks might make you laugh and some others might even make you roll on the floor like the following ones:
There was an Old Man with a beard
Who said, “It is just as I feared! -
Two Owls and a Hen,
Four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard!”

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There was an Old Person of Rheims
Who was troubled with horrible dreams;
So to keep him awake,
They fed him on cake,
Which amused that old person of Rheims.

There was an old Person of Sparta,
Who had twenty-five sons and one “darter”;
He fed them on snails,
And weighed them in scales,
That wonderful person of Sparta.

We all know that ‘darter’ alludes to daughter. However, Mr Lear is not only coining darter to make it rhyme with Sparta but is also doing so to make the limerick more lighthearted. Or maybe he visited a certain place where the people pronounced daughter as darter. In the same way in another limerick he alludes to serpent as “sarpint.” The innovative word certainly tickles your bones.
Here is another one which I found to be extremely jocular:
There was an Old Lady of Chertsey,
Who made a remarkable curtsey;
She twirled round and round
Till she sank underground,
Which distressed all the people of Chertsey.

The British writer’s coinage of words and the stretching of his imagination will truly dazzle you. Spontaneous becomes sponge-taneous and “What is the matter” becomes “What matter?” In one of his limericks, he writes about a “cream-coloured ass” and you actually wish you could see one and maybe ride on it too.

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A sketch of Edward Lear during his youth.

During his life he suffered from depression and epilepsy, which is why you often get the feeling that his highly inventive verse had a melancholic undertone. The following are three examples of this:
There was an Old Man of the Cape
Who possessed a large Barbary Ape,
Till the ape one dark night
Set the house all alight,
Which burned that Old Man of the Cape.

There was a Young Lady of Clare,
Who was sadly pursued by a bear;
When she found she was tired,
She abruptly expired,
That unfortunate Lady of Clare.

There was an Old Person of Ems,
Who casually fell in the Thames;
And when he was found
They said he was drowned,
That unlucky Old Person of Ems.

You don’t laugh at a house set on fire or at the death of an Old Man who gets scorched. Neither do you make fun of a Young Lady who dies as a result of heart failure on being chased by a grizzly bear nor at the accidental death of an Old Person who dies as a consequence of drowning.
While writing about the attributes of Mr. Lear, John Ruskin said, “I really don’t know any author to whom I am half so grateful for my idle self as Edward Lear. I shall put him first of my hundred authors.”

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Mr. Lear abundantly uses adjectives, especially in the last line of each limerick, to emphasize the reaction on the protagonist of the poem. He keeps inventing nonsense words like runcible, ombliferous, etc. The first word appears, as an adjective, several times in his works, most famously as the “runcible spoon” used by the Owl and the Pussycat.
Nonsense Songs starts with The Owl and the Pussy-cat. It talks about the romance – I repeat romance– between an Owl and a Pussycat, entirely in verse. It is followed by poems like The Duck and the Kangaroo, The Daddy Long-Legs and The Fly and The Jumblies. Each has a story to tell and is thoroughly amusing in its own right.
The London-born writer uses alliteration and imagery throughout the book which makes it even more enjoyable.
A limerick is one of the few forms of poetry that entertains both children and adults. If you have not read any of Mr Lear’s books, then you should start off with this one right away.

Resulta extraño que un hombre que escribió decenas de poesías absurdas, criado por su hermana veintidós años mayor que él, enamorado de los vino malos, del clima cálido, la India y Mesopotamia llegara a dar clases de pintura a la mismísima reina Victoria. Pero así fue; ese hombre fue Edward Lear.

Lo cierto es que hacia bastante tiempo que deseaba leer algo de Edward Lear. Descubrí al autor a finales del 2019, cuando entré en contacto con una de mis máximas influencias por aquel entonces, Edward Gorey. En alguna de las introducciones de los volúmenes de Valdemar de las obras de Edward Gorey apareció mentado Edward Lear. Y como persona que no me gusta dejar cabos sueltos, googleé el nombre de este ilustrador y estuve mirando sus trabajos pictóricos y literarios.

Siendo franca, a mí los cuadros de Edward Lear me parecen del montón y tienen bastantes semejanzas con las obras paisajísticas de Bob Ross. Más que obras de arte parecen obras de artesanía. Hay en todos ellos una monotonía que acaba hastiando. Ves un cuadro de Edward Lear y los has visto todos. En cambio, sus ilustraciones, poesías, cartas y relatos sí me parecen muy interesantes porque no son impersonales como sus cuadros. Hablan del ser humano que fue, con sus luces y sus sombras. Una pena que Edward Lear no se diera cuenta hasta bien entrada la adultez que para lo que él servía era para ilustrar payasadas y obras infantiles con un regusto oscuro, bastante adulto.

He disfrutado bastante el Fabuleario (A Book of Nonsense;1846), pero también lo he sentido bastante irregular. Los limericks, tipo de poesía de origen irlandés compuesta por cinco versos donde el primero rima con el segundo y el quinto, y el tercero con el cuarto y que el mismo Edward Lear “rescató” del olvido me han gustado, pero tampoco me han chiflado. Un detalle por parte de Anaya de poner estos poemillas también en su versión original para que podamos apreciar verdaderamente el sentido de éstos. Pero ni aun así me han parecido gran cosa. Aprecio la labor de ingenio de Lear, pero no voy a decir que son una obra de arte.

En cambio, los relatillos absurdos que incluye esta antología sí me fascinaron. Se trata de Historia de las siete familias del lago Pipple-Popple, Historia de cuatro niños que dieron la vuelta al mundo, La venganza de Pentedátilo, Viaje a la Luna y Fábula moral para tres pares de gafas si me parecieron obras notables, especialmente Historia de cuatro niños que dieron la vuelta al mundo, obra llena de imaginación y clara influencia en las primeras historias del mismísimo Edward Gorey. También recomendado Historia de las siete familias del lago Pipple-Popple por la crueldad del final. Y si también os interesa la novela gótica, La venganza de Pentedátilo es un relato para nada desestimable.

En cuanto a las cartas, lo cierto es que algunas son curiosas, pero también se me hicieron un poco aburridas. En ellas, Edward Lear habla de sus viajes esencialmente, pero no demasiado de sus sentimientos, por lo que para mí es un quiero y no puedo. Por una parte, me parecieron interesantes por la documentación que aportan de la época, pero tampoco es que tenga un gran interés es como se desarrollaba por aquel entonces una ceremonia-visita a un sultán. En fin.

En resumen, si lo que buscáis es una obra atípica donde el mismo autor os explique cómo preparar pastelillos cocuelos, poesías absurdas y retratos a tinta de su gato Foss, sin duda vuestro autor es Edward Lear.

Can't wait to start reading this to my son, to show him how silly words and poetry can be. I have to go back and mark my favorite limericks though because while many tickle the funny-bone others can be skipped.

It is always fun to read Lear.

Fun

A rather short, fun book. It can teach advanced vocabulary- descriptive words mostly and the pronunciation of countries and places- to young children.