Nonsense verse: Difference between revisions
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{{Short description|Form of nonsense literature}} |
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{{refimprove|date=January 2010}} |
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{{More citations needed|date=January 2010}} |
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[[File:Jabberwocky creatures.jpg|right|thumb|250px|[[John Tenniel]]'s depiction of the nonsense creatures in [[Lewis Carroll]]'s ''[[Jabberwocky]]''.]] |
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{{Literature}} |
{{Literature}} |
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'''Nonsense verse''' is a form of [[nonsense literature]] usually employing strong prosodic elements like rhythm and rhyme. It is whimsical and humorous in tone and employs some of the techniques of |
'''Nonsense verse''' is a form of [[Literary nonsense|nonsense literature]] usually employing strong [[Prosody (linguistics)|prosodic]] elements like rhythm and rhyme. It is often whimsical and humorous in tone and employs some of the techniques of nonsense literature. |
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[[Limerick (poetry)|Limericks]] are probably the best known form of nonsense verse, although they tend nowadays to be used for |
[[Limerick (poetry)|Limericks]] are probably the best known form of nonsense verse, although they tend nowadays to be used for straightforward humour, rather than having a nonsensical effect. |
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Among writers in English noted for nonsense verse are [[Edward Lear]], [[Lewis Carroll]], [[Mervyn Peake |
Among writers in English noted for nonsense verse are [[Edward Lear]],<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://iai.tv/articles/is-it-irrational-to-be-rational-auid-1240|title=Is It Irrational To Be Rational?|date=2019-06-11|website=IAI TV – Changing how the world thinks|language=en-GB|access-date=2019-06-20}}</ref> [[Lewis Carroll]], [[Mervyn Peake]], [[Edward Gorey]], [[Colin West (author)|Colin West]], [[Dr. Seuss]], and [[Spike Milligan]]. The [[Martian poetry|Martian Poets]] and [[Ivor Cutler]] are considered by some to be in the nonsense tradition. |
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==Variants== |
== Variants == |
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{{Original research section|date=July 2016}} |
{{Original research section|date=July 2016}} |
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In some cases, the humor of nonsense verse |
In some cases, the humor of nonsense verse relies on the incompatibility of phrases which make [[grammatical]] sense but [[semantic]] nonsense – at least in certain interpretations – as in the traditional: |
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{{poemquote| |
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:'I see' said the blind man to his deaf and dumb daughter |
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'I see' said the blind man to his deaf and dumb daughter |
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as he picked up his hammer and saw.}} |
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Compare {{linktext|amphigory}}. |
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Other nonsense verse makes use of [[nonsense word]]s—words without a clear meaning or any meaning at all. [[Lewis Carroll]] and [[Edward Lear]] both made good use of this type of nonsense in some of their verse. These poems are well formed in terms of grammar and syntax, and each nonsense word is of a clear [[parts of speech|part of speech]]. The first verse of Lewis Carroll's ''[[Jabberwocky]]'' illustrates this nonsense technique, despite [[Humpty Dumpty]]'s later clear explanation of some of the unclear words within it: |
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Other nonsense verse makes use of [[nonsense word]]s—words without a clear meaning or any meaning at all. [[Lewis Carroll]] and [[Edward Lear]] both made good use of this type of nonsense in some of their verse. These poems are well formed in terms of grammar and syntax, and each nonsense word is of a clear [[parts of speech|part of speech]]. The first verse of Lewis Carroll's "[[Jabberwocky]]" illustrates this nonsense technique, despite [[Humpty Dumpty]]'s later clear explanation of some of the unclear words within it: |
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:'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves |
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:Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: |
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{{poemquote| |
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:All mimsy were the borogoves, |
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'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves |
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:And the mome raths outgrabe. |
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Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: |
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All mimsy were the borogoves, |
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And the mome raths outgrabe. |
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}} |
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Other nonsense verse uses muddled or ambiguous grammar as well as invented words, as in [[John Lennon]]'s "The Faulty Bagnose": |
Other nonsense verse uses muddled or ambiguous grammar as well as invented words, as in [[John Lennon]]'s "The Faulty Bagnose": |
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{{poemquote| |
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:The Mungle pilgriffs far awoy |
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The Mungle pilgriffs far awoy |
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:Religeorge too thee worled. |
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Religeorge too thee {{not a typo|worled}}. |
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:Sam fells on the waysock-side |
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Sam fells on the waysock-side |
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:And somforbe on a gurled, |
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And somforbe on a gurled, |
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:With all her faulty bagnose! |
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With all her faulty bagnose! |
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}} |
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Here, ''awoy'' fills the place of "away" in the expression "far away", but also suggests the exclamation "ahoy", suitable to a voyage. Likewise, ''worled'' and ''gurled'' suggest "world" and "girl" but have the ''-ed'' form of a past-tense verb. "Somforbe" could possibly be a noun, possibly a slurred verb phrase. In the sense that it is a slurred verb, it could be the word "stumbled", as in Sam fell onto the drunk side and stumbled on a girl. |
Here, ''awoy'' fills the place of "away" in the expression "far away", but also suggests the exclamation "ahoy", suitable to a voyage. Likewise, ''worled'' and ''gurled'' suggest "world" and "girl" but have the ''-ed'' form of a past-tense verb. "Somforbe" could possibly be a noun, possibly a slurred verb phrase. In the sense that it is a slurred verb, it could be the word "stumbled", as in Sam fell onto the drunk side and stumbled on a girl. |
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However, not all nonsense verse relies on word play. Some simply illustrate nonsensical situations. For instance, Edward Lear's poem, |
However, not all nonsense verse relies on word play. Some simply illustrate nonsensical situations. For instance, Edward Lear's poem, "The Jumblies" has a comprehensible chorus: |
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{{poemquote| |
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:Far and few, far and few, |
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Far and few, far and few, |
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:Are the lands where the Jumblies live; |
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Are the lands where the Jumblies live; |
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:Their heads are green, and their hands are blue |
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Their heads are green, and their hands are blue |
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:And they went to sea in a sieve. |
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And they went to sea in a sieve. |
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}} |
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However, the significance of the color of |
However, the significance of the color of the heads and hands is not apparent and the verse appears{{according to whom|date=July 2021}} to be nonsense. |
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Some nonsense verse simply presents contradictory or impossible scenarios in a matter-of-fact tone, like this example from [[Brian P. Cleary]]'s |
Some nonsense verse simply presents contradictory or impossible scenarios in a matter-of-fact tone, like this example from [[Brian P. Cleary]]'s ''Rainbow Soup: Adventures in Poetry'' (Millbrook Press, 2004): |
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{{poemquote| |
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:One tall midget reached up high, |
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One tall midget reached up high, |
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:Touched the ground above the sky, |
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Touched the ground above the sky, |
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:Tied his loafers, licked his tongue, |
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Tied his [[Slip-on shoe|loafers]], licked his tongue, |
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:And told about the bee he stung. |
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And told about the bee he stung. |
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:He painted, then, an oval square |
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He painted, then, an oval square |
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:The color of the bald man's hair, |
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The color of the bald man's hair, |
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:And in the painting you could hear |
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And in the painting you could hear |
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:What's undetected by the ear. |
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What's undetected by the ear. |
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}} |
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Likewise, a poem sometimes attributed to [[Christopher Isherwood]] and first found in the anthology ''Poems Past and Present'' (Harold Dew, 1946 edition, J M Dent & Sons, Canada – attributed to "Anon") makes grammatical and semantic sense and yet lies so earnestly and absurdly that it qualifies as complete nonsense: |
Likewise, a poem sometimes attributed to [[Christopher Isherwood]] and first found in the anthology ''Poems Past and Present'' (Harold Dew, 1946 edition, J M Dent & Sons, Canada – attributed to "Anon") makes grammatical and semantic sense and yet lies so earnestly and absurdly that it qualifies as complete nonsense: |
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{{poemquote| |
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:The common cormorant or shag |
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The common cormorant or shag |
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:Lays eggs inside a paper bag |
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Lays eggs inside a paper bag |
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:The reason you will see no doubt |
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The reason you will see no doubt |
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:It is to keep the lightning out |
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It is to keep the lightning out |
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:But what these unobservant birds |
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But what these unobservant birds |
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:Have failed to notice is that herds |
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Have failed to notice is that herds |
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:Of wandering bears may come with buns |
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Of wandering bears may come with buns |
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:And steal the bags to hold the crumbs. |
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And steal the bags to hold the crumbs. |
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}} |
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More contemporary examples of nonsense verse |
More contemporary examples of nonsense verse include the [[Vogon poetry]] from [[Douglas Adams]]'s ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]'', and the 1972 song "[[Prisencolinensinainciusol]]" by Italian multi-talent [[Adriano Celentano]]. |
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== Other languages == |
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==Usage== |
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There is a long tradition of nonsense verse in English. The [[Anglo-Saxon riddles]] are an early form. For instance: |
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[[Russia]]n nonsense poets include [[Daniil Kharms]] and [[Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy]], particularly his work under the pseudonym [[Kozma Prutkov]], and some [[France|French]] exponents are [[Charles Cros]] and [[Robert Desnos]]. The best-known Dutch Nonsense poet is Cees Buddingh'. On Indian language [[Bengalis|Bengali]] [[Sukumar Roy]] is the pioneer of nonsense poems and is very famous for writing children's literature. [[Abol Tabol]] is the best collection of nonsense verse in [[Bengali language]]. |
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:A moth ate some words – it seemed to me |
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:strangely weird – when I heard this wonder: |
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:that it had devoured – the song of a man. |
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:A thief in the thickness of night – gloriously mouthed |
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:the source of knowledge – but the thief was not |
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:the least bit wiser – for the words in his mouth. |
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Among [[Germany|German]] nonsense writers, [[Christian Morgenstern]] and [[Ringelnatz]] are the most widely known, and are both still popular, while [[Robert Gernhardt]] is a contemporary example. Morgenstern's "[[The Nasobame|''Das Nasobēm'']]" is an imaginary being like the Jabberwock, although less frightful: |
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The following poem makes even more extreme use of word incompatibility by pairing a number of polar opposites such as morning/night, paralyzed/walking, dry/drowned, lie/true, in conjunction with lesser incompatibilities such as swords/shot and rubber/wall. |
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{{Verse translation|lang=de| |
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:One fine day in the middle of the night, |
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Auf seinen Nasen schreitet |
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:Two dead men got up to fight. |
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einher das Nasobēm, |
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:Back-to-back they faced one another, |
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von seinem Kind begleitet. |
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:Drew their swords and shot each other. |
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Es steht noch nicht im [[Brehms Tierleben|Brehm]]. |
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:One was blind and the other couldn't see, |
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Es steht noch nicht im [[Meyers Konversations-Lexikon|Meyer]]. |
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:So they chose a dummy for a referee. |
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Und auch im [[Brockhaus Enzyklopädie|Brockhaus]] nicht. |
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:A blind man went to see fair play, |
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Es trat aus meiner Leyer |
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:A dumb man went to shout "hooray!" |
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zum ersten Mal ans Licht. |
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:A paralyzed donkey passing by, |
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Auf seinen Nasen schreitet |
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:Kicked the blind men in the eye, |
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(wie schon gesagt) seitdem, |
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: Knocked him through a nine-inch wall, |
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von seinem Kind begleitet, |
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:Into a dry ditch and drowned them all. |
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einher das Nasobēm. |
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:A deaf policeman heard the noise, |
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:And went to arrest the two dead boys. |
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:If you don't believe this lie is true, |
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:Ask the blind man – he saw it too! |
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Many [[nursery rhyme]]s are nonsense if the context and background are not known. Some claim that [[Mother Goose]] rhymes were originally written to parody the aristocracy while appearing to be nothing more than nonsense nursery rhymes.{{Citation needed|date=August 2008}} One example is: |
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:Hey diddle, diddle, |
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:The cat and the fiddle. |
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:The cow jumped over the moon. |
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:The little dog laughed to see such fun, |
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:And the dish ran away with the spoon. |
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==Other languages== |
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[[Russia]]n nonsense poets include [[Daniil Kharms]] and [[Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy]], particularly his work under the pseudonym [[Kozma Prutkov]], and some [[France|French]] exponents are [[Charles Cros]] and [[Robert Desnos]]. The best-known Dutch Nonsense poet is Cees Buddingh'. |
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Among [[Germany|German]] nonsense writers, [[Christian Morgenstern]] and [[Ringelnatz]] are the most widely known, and are both still popular, while [[Robert Gernhardt]] is a contemporary example. Morgenstern's ''[[The Nasobame|Das Nasobēm]]'' is an imaginary being like the Jabberwock, although less frightful: |
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{| |
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! style="text-align:center" | Original |
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! style="text-align:center" | Translation |
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|- |
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| |
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Upon its noses strideth |
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:Auf seinen Nasen schreitet |
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Onward the Noseybum, |
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:einher das Nasobēm, |
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With it its young abideth. |
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:von seinem Kind begleitet. |
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It's not yet found in Brehm. |
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It's not yet found in Meyer. |
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:Es steht noch nicht im [[Meyers Konversations-Lexikon|Meyer]]. |
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And neither in Brockhaus. |
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It trotted from my lyre, |
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:Es trat aus meiner Leyer |
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Its first time in the light. |
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:zum ersten Mal ans Licht. |
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Upon its noses strideth |
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:Auf seinen Nasen schreitet |
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(As said before) thencefrom, |
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:(wie schon gesagt) seitdem, |
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With it its young abideth, |
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:von seinem Kind begleitet, |
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Onward the Noseybum. |
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:einher das Nasobēm. |
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}} |
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| |
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:Upon its noses strideth |
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:Onward the Noseybum, |
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:With it its young abideth. |
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:It's not yet found in Brehm. |
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:It's not yet found in Meyer. |
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:Nor has a Brockhaus cite. |
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:It trotted from my lyre, |
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:Its first time in the light. |
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:Upon its noses strideth |
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:(As said before) thencefrom, |
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:With it its young abideth, |
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:Onward the Noseybum. |
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|} |
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The following observation by [[F.W. Bernstein]] has practically become a [[German language|German]] proverb. |
The following observation by [[F.W. Bernstein]] has practically become a [[German language|German]] proverb. |
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{{Verse translation|lang=de| |
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{| |
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Die schärfsten Kritiker der Elche |
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waren früher selber welche |
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| |
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The sharpest critics of the elks |
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:Die schärfsten Kritiker der Elche |
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used to be ones themselves |
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:waren früher selber welche |
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}} |
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| |
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:The sharpest critics of the elks |
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:used to be ones themselves |
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|} |
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[[Julio Cortázar]], the Argentinian writer, was famous for playing with language in several works. |
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Among Indian writers, [[Bengali language|Bengali]] poet [[Sukumar Ray]] is widely known. |
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Besides the above, there is a special variation of Nonsense Verses called 颠倒歌 (upside down songs) in Chinese. They tend to make stuff happen the opposite way, for example: |
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It's well known the case of [[Julio Cortazar]], the Argentinian writer, famous for play with language in severe works. |
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{| class="wikitable" |
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|+ |
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!Simplified Characters |
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!Traditional Characters |
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!Pinyin |
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!Bopomofo |
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!Literal Translation |
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|- |
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|吃牛奶 |
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|吃牛奶 |
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|chī niú nǎi |
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|ㄔ ㄋㄧㄡˊ ㄋㄞˇ |
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|I ate the milk, |
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|- |
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|喝面包 |
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|喝麵包 |
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|hē miàn bāo |
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|ㄏㄜ ㄇㄧㄢˋ ㄅㄠ |
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|Drank the bread, |
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|- |
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|夹起火车上皮包 |
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|夾起火車上皮包 |
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|jiā qǐ huǒ chē shàng pí bāo |
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|ㄐㄧㄚ ㄑㄧˇ ㄏㄨㄛˇ ㄔㄜ ㄕㄤˋ ㄆㄧˊ ㄅㄠ |
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|Clinged on my train just to catch up the purse; |
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|- |
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|东西街 |
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|東西街 |
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|dōng xī jiē |
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|ㄉㄨㄥ ㄒㄧ ㄐㄧㄝ |
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|On the east–west street, |
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|- |
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|南北走 |
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|南北走 |
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|nán běi zǒu |
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|ㄋㄢˊ ㄅㄟˇ ㄗㄡˇ |
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|I walked north–south; |
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|- |
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|看见一个人咬狗 |
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|看見一個人咬狗 |
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|kàn jiàn yī gè rén yǎo gǒu |
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|ㄎㄢˋ ㄐㄧㄢˋ ㄧ ㄍㄜˋ ㄖㄣˊ ㄧㄠˇ ㄍㄡˇ |
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|I saw a person biting a dog, |
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|- |
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|捡起狗来打砖头 |
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|撿起狗來打磚頭 |
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|jiǎn qǐ gǒu lái dǎ zhuān tóu |
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|ㄐㄧㄢˇ ㄑㄧˇ ㄍㄡˇ ㄌㄞˊ ㄉㄚˇ ㄓㄨㄢ ㄊㄡˊ |
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|He picked up the dog to beat a brick, |
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|- |
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|反被砖头咬一口 |
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|反被磚頭咬一口 |
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|fǎn bèi zhuān tóu yǎo yī kǒu |
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|ㄈㄢˇ ㄅㄟˋ ㄓㄨㄢ ㄊㄡˊ ㄧㄠˇ ㄧ ㄎㄡˇ |
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|Only to get bitten by the brick. |
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|} |
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== See also == |
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==See also== |
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* [[Clanging]] |
* [[Clanging]] |
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* [[Doggerel]] |
* [[Doggerel]] |
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Line 162: | Line 193: | ||
== References == |
== References == |
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{{Reflist}} |
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<references/> |
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== Further reading == |
== Further reading == |
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* {{cite journal|last=Hartle|first=P. N.|journal=Neophilologus|date=1 January 2002|volume=86|issue=1|pages=155–170|doi=10.1023/A:1012966922849|title="All His Workes Sir": John Taylor's Nonsense}} |
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* {{cite journal|last=Hartle|first=P. N.|journal=Neophilologus|date=1 January 2002|volume=86|issue=1|pages=155–170|doi=10.1023/A:1012966922849|title="All His Workes Sir": John Taylor's Nonsense|s2cid=150720051}} |
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* {{cite book|last=Malcolm|first=Noel|title=The origins of English nonsense|year=1997|publisher=Fontana Press|location=London|isbn=9780006388449}} |
* {{cite book|last=Malcolm|first=Noel|title=The origins of English nonsense|year=1997|publisher=Fontana Press|location=London|isbn=9780006388449}} |
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* {{cite book|last=Orwell|first=George|author-link=George Orwell|title=Collected essays|year=1945|chapter=Nonsense poetry|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061009032832/http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwell/george/o79e/part29.html|archive-date=2006-10-09|chapter-url=http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwell/george/o79e/part29.html}} |
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== External links == |
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{{Commons category}} |
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* [http://www.bencourtney.com/ebooks/lear Nonsense Books] by Edward Lear. |
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==External links== |
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* [http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/index.html An Edward Lear website]. |
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{{Commonscat}} |
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*[http://www. |
* [http://www.nonsenseliterature.com Gromboolia], A general nonsense resource site. |
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*[http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/index.html An Edward Lear website]. |
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*[http://www.nonsenseliterature.com Gromboolia], A general nonsense resource site. |
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{{Children's music}} |
{{Children's music}} |
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{{Authority control}} |
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Nonsense Verse}} |
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nonsense Verse}} |
Latest revision as of 02:56, 22 January 2024
This article needs additional citations for verification. (January 2010) |
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/43/Jabberwocky_creatures.jpg/250px-Jabberwocky_creatures.jpg)
Literature | ||||||
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Oral literature | ||||||
Major written forms | ||||||
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Prose genres | ||||||
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Poetry genres | ||||||
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Dramatic genres | ||||||
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Theory and criticism | ||||||
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Nonsense verse is a form of nonsense literature usually employing strong prosodic elements like rhythm and rhyme. It is often whimsical and humorous in tone and employs some of the techniques of nonsense literature.
Limericks are probably the best known form of nonsense verse, although they tend nowadays to be used for straightforward humour, rather than having a nonsensical effect.
Among writers in English noted for nonsense verse are Edward Lear,[1] Lewis Carroll, Mervyn Peake, Edward Gorey, Colin West, Dr. Seuss, and Spike Milligan. The Martian Poets and Ivor Cutler are considered by some to be in the nonsense tradition.
Variants
[edit]![]() | This section possibly contains original research. (July 2016) |
In some cases, the humor of nonsense verse relies on the incompatibility of phrases which make grammatical sense but semantic nonsense – at least in certain interpretations – as in the traditional:
'I see' said the blind man to his deaf and dumb daughter
as he picked up his hammer and saw.
Compare amphigory.
Other nonsense verse makes use of nonsense words—words without a clear meaning or any meaning at all. Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear both made good use of this type of nonsense in some of their verse. These poems are well formed in terms of grammar and syntax, and each nonsense word is of a clear part of speech. The first verse of Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky" illustrates this nonsense technique, despite Humpty Dumpty's later clear explanation of some of the unclear words within it:
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Other nonsense verse uses muddled or ambiguous grammar as well as invented words, as in John Lennon's "The Faulty Bagnose":
The Mungle pilgriffs far awoy
Religeorge too thee worled.
Sam fells on the waysock-side
And somforbe on a gurled,
With all her faulty bagnose!
Here, awoy fills the place of "away" in the expression "far away", but also suggests the exclamation "ahoy", suitable to a voyage. Likewise, worled and gurled suggest "world" and "girl" but have the -ed form of a past-tense verb. "Somforbe" could possibly be a noun, possibly a slurred verb phrase. In the sense that it is a slurred verb, it could be the word "stumbled", as in Sam fell onto the drunk side and stumbled on a girl.
However, not all nonsense verse relies on word play. Some simply illustrate nonsensical situations. For instance, Edward Lear's poem, "The Jumblies" has a comprehensible chorus:
Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue
And they went to sea in a sieve.
However, the significance of the color of the heads and hands is not apparent and the verse appears[according to whom?] to be nonsense.
Some nonsense verse simply presents contradictory or impossible scenarios in a matter-of-fact tone, like this example from Brian P. Cleary's Rainbow Soup: Adventures in Poetry (Millbrook Press, 2004):
One tall midget reached up high,
Touched the ground above the sky,
Tied his loafers, licked his tongue,
And told about the bee he stung.
He painted, then, an oval square
The color of the bald man's hair,
And in the painting you could hear
What's undetected by the ear.
Likewise, a poem sometimes attributed to Christopher Isherwood and first found in the anthology Poems Past and Present (Harold Dew, 1946 edition, J M Dent & Sons, Canada – attributed to "Anon") makes grammatical and semantic sense and yet lies so earnestly and absurdly that it qualifies as complete nonsense:
The common cormorant or shag
Lays eggs inside a paper bag
The reason you will see no doubt
It is to keep the lightning out
But what these unobservant birds
Have failed to notice is that herds
Of wandering bears may come with buns
And steal the bags to hold the crumbs.
More contemporary examples of nonsense verse include the Vogon poetry from Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and the 1972 song "Prisencolinensinainciusol" by Italian multi-talent Adriano Celentano.
Other languages
[edit]Russian nonsense poets include Daniil Kharms and Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, particularly his work under the pseudonym Kozma Prutkov, and some French exponents are Charles Cros and Robert Desnos. The best-known Dutch Nonsense poet is Cees Buddingh'. On Indian language Bengali Sukumar Roy is the pioneer of nonsense poems and is very famous for writing children's literature. Abol Tabol is the best collection of nonsense verse in Bengali language.
Among German nonsense writers, Christian Morgenstern and Ringelnatz are the most widely known, and are both still popular, while Robert Gernhardt is a contemporary example. Morgenstern's "Das Nasobēm" is an imaginary being like the Jabberwock, although less frightful:
Auf seinen Nasen schreitet |
Upon its noses strideth |
The following observation by F.W. Bernstein has practically become a German proverb.
Die schärfsten Kritiker der Elche |
The sharpest critics of the elks |
Julio Cortázar, the Argentinian writer, was famous for playing with language in several works.
Besides the above, there is a special variation of Nonsense Verses called 颠倒歌 (upside down songs) in Chinese. They tend to make stuff happen the opposite way, for example:
Simplified Characters | Traditional Characters | Pinyin | Bopomofo | Literal Translation |
---|---|---|---|---|
吃牛奶 | 吃牛奶 | chī niú nǎi | ㄔ ㄋㄧㄡˊ ㄋㄞˇ | I ate the milk, |
喝面包 | 喝麵包 | hē miàn bāo | ㄏㄜ ㄇㄧㄢˋ ㄅㄠ | Drank the bread, |
夹起火车上皮包 | 夾起火車上皮包 | jiā qǐ huǒ chē shàng pí bāo | ㄐㄧㄚ ㄑㄧˇ ㄏㄨㄛˇ ㄔㄜ ㄕㄤˋ ㄆㄧˊ ㄅㄠ | Clinged on my train just to catch up the purse; |
东西街 | 東西街 | dōng xī jiē | ㄉㄨㄥ ㄒㄧ ㄐㄧㄝ | On the east–west street, |
南北走 | 南北走 | nán běi zǒu | ㄋㄢˊ ㄅㄟˇ ㄗㄡˇ | I walked north–south; |
看见一个人咬狗 | 看見一個人咬狗 | kàn jiàn yī gè rén yǎo gǒu | ㄎㄢˋ ㄐㄧㄢˋ ㄧ ㄍㄜˋ ㄖㄣˊ ㄧㄠˇ ㄍㄡˇ | I saw a person biting a dog, |
捡起狗来打砖头 | 撿起狗來打磚頭 | jiǎn qǐ gǒu lái dǎ zhuān tóu | ㄐㄧㄢˇ ㄑㄧˇ ㄍㄡˇ ㄌㄞˊ ㄉㄚˇ ㄓㄨㄢ ㄊㄡˊ | He picked up the dog to beat a brick, |
反被砖头咬一口 | 反被磚頭咬一口 | fǎn bèi zhuān tóu yǎo yī kǒu | ㄈㄢˇ ㄅㄟˋ ㄓㄨㄢ ㄊㄡˊ ㄧㄠˇ ㄧ ㄎㄡˇ | Only to get bitten by the brick. |
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ "Is It Irrational To Be Rational?". IAI TV – Changing how the world thinks. 2019-06-11. Retrieved 2019-06-20.
Further reading
[edit]- Hartle, P. N. (1 January 2002). ""All His Workes Sir": John Taylor's Nonsense". Neophilologus. 86 (1): 155–170. doi:10.1023/A:1012966922849. S2CID 150720051.
- Malcolm, Noel (1997). The origins of English nonsense. London: Fontana Press. ISBN 9780006388449.
- Orwell, George (1945). "Nonsense poetry". Collected essays. Archived from the original on 2006-10-09.
External links
[edit]![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
- Nonsense Books by Edward Lear.
- An Edward Lear website.
- Gromboolia, A general nonsense resource site.