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| 2/10/1846 |
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"How Pleasant to Know Mr Lear"
On this day in 1846, Edward Lear's A Book of Nonsense was published. This was the first of his four "nonsense" books, and Lear was the first in a golden half-century of English nonsense that would include Lewis Carroll and Hilaire Belloc. Beneath the light-heated limericks the biographers see a misfit's lifelong attempt to cope and cover-up. |
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Academy of American Poets
Lear biography, poetry, bibliography, and links. Selected poems include "The Courtship of the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo", "The Jumblies", and "The Owl and the Pussy-Cat."
"Popular and respected in his day, Lear's travel books have largely been ignored in the twentieth century. Rather, Lear is remembered for his humorous poems, such as 'The Owl and the Pussycat,' and as the creator of the form and meter of the modern limerick. ... Although the subject and form of his works varies greatly, all of Lear's poems can be characterized by his irreverent view of the world; Lear poked fun at everything, including himself in 'By Way of a Preface.' Many critics view Lear's devotion to the ridiculous as a method for dealing with or undermining the all-pervasive orderliness and industriousness of Victorian society. Regardless of impetus, the humor of Lear's poems has proved irrefutably timeless." |  | Edward Lear, "The Owl and the Pussy-cat," at The Atlantic Monthly
Audio readings of the Lear poem by Gail Mazur, Lloyd Schwartz, and Richard Wilbur, with introduction and analysis by Schwartz. "Among the many High-Serious literary figures of the Victorian era lurked a small number of poets who resisted the reigning solemnity: W. S. Gilbert, Thomas Hood, Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear. As Lear himself did, we call their poems 'nonsense.' But inaccurately. . . ." | |
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The TinL masthead features photography by
Natasha D'Schommer
, and the book art featured is by Jim Rosenau.
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