A limerick is a form of poetry, especially one in five-line anapestic meter with a strict rhyme scheme (AABBA), which is sometimes obscene with humorous intent. The first, second and fifth lines are usually longer than the third and fourth. The oldest attested text in this form is a Latin prayer by Thomas Aquinas of the 13th century.
The form appeared in England in 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:
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 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 catalexis (missing a weak syllable at the beginning of a line) and extra-syllable rhyme (which adds an extra unstressed syllable) can make limericks appear 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. 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 term limerick for this type of poem is an 1880 reference, in a Saint John, New Brunswick newspaper, to an apparently well-known tune,
Tune: Won't you come to Limerick.
§Edward Lear
The limerick form was popularized by Edward Lear in his first Book of Nonsense (1846) and a later work, More Nonsense, Pictures, Rhymes, Botany, etc. (1872) . Lear wrote 212 limericks, mostly considered nonsense literature. 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 variant of the first line ending in the same word, but with slight differences that create a nonsensical, circular effect. The humor is not in the "punch line" ending but rather in the tension between meaning and its lack.
The following is an example of one of Edward Lear's limericks.
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 (where the name Menzies is pronounced /ˈmɪŋɪs/ MING-iss).
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.
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:
Comedian John Clarke has also parodied Lear's style:
Web Cartoonist Zach Weiner, author of SMBC-Comics, wrote a reversed limerick that makes sense read top-to-bottom, and vice versa.
§See also
- Nonsense literature
- Chastushka (Russian form with similar traits)
- Clerihew
- Double dactyl
- Lecherous Limericks, a book of limericks by Isaac Asimov
- Light verse
- Dixon Lanier Merritt, the author of a famous limerick about pelicans
- Quintain (any poetic form containing 5 lines such as tanka, cinquain, and limerick)
- 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
§Notes
§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. (Octoberâ€"November 2010) pages 2â€"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 â€" 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.