Limerick (poetry)

A limerick is a kind of a witty, humorous, or nonsense poem, especially one in five-line Two short, unstressed syllables followed by one long stressed syllable. or One stressed syllable surrounded by two unstressed syllables. meter with a strict rhyme scheme (AABBA), which is sometimes obscene with humorous intent. The form can be found in England as of the early years of the 18th century. It was popularized by Edward Lear in the 19th century, although he did not use the term.

The following limerick is of unknown origin:

The limerick packs laughs anatomical

In space that is quite economical.

But the good ones I've seen

So seldom are clean

And the clean ones so seldom are comical.

Gershon Legman, who compiled the largest and most scholarly anthology, held that the true limerick as a folk form is always obscene, and cites similar opinions by Arnold Bennett and George Bernard Shaw, describing the clean limerick as a periodic fad and object of magazine contests, rarely rising above mediocrity. From a folkloric point of view, the form is essentially transgressive; violation of taboo is part of its function.

Form

The standard form of a limerick is a stanza of five lines, with the first, second and fifth usually rhyming with one another and having three feet of three syllables each; and the shorter third and fourth lines also rhyming with each other, but having only two feet of three syllables. The defining "foot" of a limerick's meter is usually the anapaest, (ta-ta-TUM), but limericks can also be considered amphibrachic (ta-TUM-ta).

However, from a rhythmic point of view, lines 1, 2 and 5 have a silent accent at the end, making 4 accents per line. Lines 3 and 4 combined also have 4 accents, making four lines with an overall total of 16 accents (i.e. foot tapping "beats" ). This is why limericks can be sung to sixteen bars of 3/4 music. Reading, or reciting, naturally follows the faster rhythm of 6/8 time, making eight bars of two triplets per bar. A triplet represents a "foot" of 3 syllables.

The first line traditionally introduces a person and a place, with the place appearing at the end of the first line and establishing the rhyme scheme for the second and fifth lines. In early limericks, the last line was often essentially a repeat of the first line, although this is no longer customary.

Within the genre, ordinary speech stress is often distorted in the first line, and may be regarded as a feature of the form: "There was a young man from the coast;" "There once was a girl from Detroit…" Legman takes this as a convention whereby prosody is violated simultaneously with propriety. Exploitation of geographical names, especially exotic ones, is also common, and has been seen as invoking memories of geography lessons in order to subvert the decorum taught in the schoolroom; Legman finds that the exchange of limericks is almost exclusive to comparatively well-educated males, women figuring in limericks almost exclusively as "villains or victims". The most prized limericks incorporate a kind of twist, which may be revealed in the final line or lie in the way the rhymes are often intentionally tortured, or both. Many limericks show some form of internal rhyme, alliteration or assonance, or some element of word play.

Verses in limerick form are sometimes combined with a refrain to form a limerick song, a traditional humorous drinking song often with obscene verses.

Origin of the name

The origin of the name limerick for this type of poem is debated. As of several years ago, its usage was first documented in England in 1898 (New English Dictionary) and in the United States in 1902, but in recent years several earlier uses have been documented. The name is generally taken to be a reference to the City or County of Limerick in Ireland sometimes particularly to the Maigue Poets, and may derive from an earlier form of nonsense verse parlour game that traditionally included a refrain that included "Will [or won't] you come (up) to Limerick?" The earliest known use of the name "Limerick" for this type poem is an 1880 reference, in a Saint John, New Brunswick newspaper, to an apparently well-known tune,

[Pie]:There was a young rustic named Mallory,

who drew but a very small salary.

    When he went to the show,

    his purse made him go

to a seat in the uppermost gallery.

Tune: Wont you come to Limerick.

Edward Lear

A Book of Nonsense (ca. 1875 James Miller edition) by Edward Lear

The limerick form was popularized by Edward Lear in his first Book of Nonsense (1845) and a later work (1872) on the same theme. Lear wrote 212 limericks, mostly nonsense verse. It was customary at the time for limericks to accompany an absurd illustration of the same subject, and for the final line of the limerick to be a kind of conclusion, usually a variant of the first line ending in the same word.

The following is an example of one of Edward Lear's limericks.

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!'

Lear's limericks were often typeset in three or four lines, according to the space available under the accompanying picture.

Variations

The idiosyncratic link between spelling and pronunciation in the English language is explored in this Scottish example (the name Menzies is pronounced /ˈmɪŋɪs/ MING-iss).

A lively young damsel named Menzies

Inquired: "Do you know what this thenzies?"

    Her aunt, with a gasp,

    Replied: "It's a wasp,

And you're holding the end where the stenzies."

Punning limericks feature complex wordplay, as in this example:

A flea and a fly in a flue,

Were trapped and knew not what to do,

'Let us flee', said the fly,

'Let us fly', said the flea,

So they flew through a flaw in the flue.

The limerick form is so well known that it can be parodied in fairly subtle ways. These parodies are sometimes called anti-limericks. The following example, of unknown origin, subverts the structure of the true limerick by changing the number of syllables in the lines.

There was a young man from Japan

Whose limericks never would scan.

When asked why this was,

He replied "It's because

I always try to fit as many syllables into the last line as ever I possibly can."

The following example subverts the structure of the true limerick by changing the number of lines.

There once was a man from the sticks

Who liked to compose limericks.

But he failed at the sport,

For he wrote 'em too short.

Other anti-limericks follow the meter of a limerick but deliberately break the rhyme scheme, like the following example, attributed to W.S. Gilbert, in a parody of a limerick by Lear:

There was an old man of St. Bees,

Who was stung in the arm by a wasp;

When they asked, "Does it hurt?"

He replied, "No, it doesn't,

But I thought all the while 'twas a Hornet."

World War II

A series of limericks was used to great effect in World War II to obtain priority in a dockyard to have new guns fitted to the Dutch sloop Soemba.

The first was:

A report has come in from the Soemba

that their salvoes go off like a Rhumba

two guns, they sound fine

but the third five point nine

he am bust and refuse to go boomba.

by Captain Nicholl (Royal Navy)

The series continued up to a final limerick by the vice-chief of staff of the Royal Dutch navy.

See also

• Dixon Lanier Merritt, the author of a famous limerick about pelicans
• "The Negotiation Limerick File", a song by Beastie Boys rapped in the form of a limerick
• There once was a man from Nantucket, a popular limerick subject
• Chastushka (Russian form with similar traits)
• Clerihew
• Double dactyl
• Quintain (any poetic form containing 5 lines such as tanka, cinquain, and limerick)

References

• Baring-Gould, William Stuart and Ceil Baring-Gould (1988). The Annotated Mother Goose, Random House.
• Brandreth, Gyles (1986). Everyman's Word Games
• Cohen, Gerald (compiler) (2010). "Stephen Goranson's research into _limerick_: a preliminary report." "Comments on Etymology" vol. 40, no. 1-2. (October-November 2010) pages 2-11.
• Legman, Gershon (1964). The Horn Book, University Press.
• Legman, Gershon (1988). The Limerick, Random House.
• Loomis, C. Grant (1963). Western Folklore, Vol. 22, No. 3 (July, 1963).
• Wells, Carolyn (1903). A Nonsense Anthology, Charles Scribner's Sons.

External links

• Edward Lear's A Book of Nonsense from Project Gutenberg
• OEDILF – A limerick dictionary
• 'Limericks (5-line verse)' file at Limerick City Library, Ireland

Limerick bibliographies:

• Deex, Arthur. Arthur Deex's comprehensive annotated Limerick Bibliography
• Dilcher, Karl The Karl Dilcher bibliography of limerick books.