limerick

A limerick is a five-line poem in anapestic or amphibrachic meter with a strict rhyme scheme (aabba), which intends to be witty or humorous, and is sometimes obscene with humorous intent. It may have its roots in the 18th-century Maigue Poets of Ireland^{[citation needed]}, although the form can be found in England in the early years of the century^[1]. It was popularized in English by Edward Lear in the 19th century, although he did not use the term.

The following example of a 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,^[2] 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).

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.^[3] 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 America 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^[4][5] 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?" ^[6] The earliest known use of the name "Limerick" for this type poem is an 1880 reference, in a St. John, New Brunswick newspaper, to an apparently well-known tune,^[7]

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.^[8]

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."^[9]

The limerick form is so well know that it can be parodied in fairly subtle ways, such as the following example, attributed to W.S. Gilbert:

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 't was a Hornet." ^[10]

See also

• Chastushka (Russian form with similar traits)
• Clerihew
• Double dactyl
• Dixon Lanier Merritt's famous limerick about pelicans
• There once was a man from Nantucket, a popular limerick subject

Notes

References

• Baring-Gould, William Stuart and Ceil Baring-Gould (1988). The Annotated Mother Goose, Random House.
• 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

• David Morin's physics limericks, from his mechanics textbook used for the advanced introductory Harvard physics course, Physics 16
• Edward Lear's A Book of Nonsense from Project Gutenberg
• OEDILF – A limerick dictionary

Limerick bibliographies:

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