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EspañolLITERARY NONSENSE
'Literary nonsense' refers to a genre of literature, whether poetry or prose, that depends on a balance of sense and nonsense, on order and chaos. It usually presents a topsy-turvy world but is distinct from fantasy. Often, though not necessarily, humorous, nonsense has a kind of humor derived from a different source than a joke: nonsense is funny because it does ''not'' make sense, as opposed to most humor which is funny because it ''does''. Nonsense usually lives like a parasite, within the host of another genre or type of literature, and as such, can appear in many guises, such as romantic verse, alphabet, travel writing, short story, lyric poetry, journalism, and recipes. Structural strictness is often balanced by semantic chaos and polysemy. According to Wim Tigges, the effect of nonsense is often caused by an excess of meaning, rather than a lack of it. Tigges also gives a number of nonsense techniques/devices that characterize the genre, including faulty cause and effect, portmanteau, neologism, reversals and inversions, imprecision, simultaneity, picture/text incongruity, arbitrariness, infinite repetition, negativity or mirroring, and misappropriation[1]. Michael Heyman has added to this list nonsense tautology, reduplication, statement of the obvious, and absurd precision[2]. Nonsense can exist as a genre, in which many nonsense devices are used to create a careful balance, or it can be used as a device, in which case the text may be quite sensical with only moments of the nonsense effect. Sometimes this kind of writing is inaccurately referred to as "nonsense verse", which is inaccurate not because nonsense verse does not exist, but because nonsense can appear in non-verse forms. An example of nonsense in film is The Avengers, in which Mother states: "I think of at least 6 impossible things before breakfast."
While much nonsense from the nineteenth century onward has been written for children, the genre has a much longer history in adult forms. Noel Malcolm, in his book ''The Origins of English Nonsense,'' gives a good history of the genre in its adult form, starting with figures such as John Hoskyns, Henry Peacham, John Sanford, and John Taylor (all early seventeenth century).[3] It has also appeared as an important element in the works of figures such as James Joyce, Flann O'Brien, and Eugene Ionesco. Literary nonsense, as opposed to folk forms of nonsense that have always existed, was first written for children in the early nineteenth century. It was popularized by Edward Lear, and later by Lewis Carroll. Regardless of the intended audience, it is usually enjoyed by both adults and children for its careful artistry, absurd logic, adherence to form, delight in sound, sense of play, and subversive tendencies.
The two most celebrated nonsense writers in English are Edward Lear (1812-1888) and Lewis Carroll (1832-1898), although nonsense existed in English long before the nineteenth century. Lewis Carroll is known for the poem "Jabberwocky", which appears in ''Through the Looking-Glass''. His other literary nonsense works include ''The Hunting of the Snark'' and ''She's All My Fancy Painted Him'', among others.
Some of the most talented writers in English who have contributed to the genre are: Mervyn Peake, Edward Gorey, Flann O'Brien, Alan Watts, Dr. Seuss, Carl Sandburg, Laura E. Richards, Spike Milligan,Jack Prelutsky, Shel Silverstein, John Lennon, Michael Rosen, Anushka Ravishankar, Mike Gordon, and James Thurber.
The sentence "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously" was coined by Noam Chomsky as an example of nonsense. The individual words make sense, and are arranged according to proper grammar, yet the result is still nonsense. The inspiration for this attempt at creating verbal nonsense came from the idea of contradiction and irrelevant or immaterial characteristics (an idea may have a dimension of color, yet it is first specified to be without hue), both of which would be sure to make a phrase meaningless. The phrase "the square root of Tuesday" operates on the latter principle. This principle is behind the inscrutability of the koan "What is the sound of one hand clapping?", as one hand would supposedly require another hand to complete the definition of clapping.
Still, the human will to find meaning is strong; ''green ideas'' might be ideas associated with a Green party in politics, and ''colorless green ideas'' criticises some of them as uninspiring. For some, the human impulse to find meaning in what is actually random or nonsensical is what makes people find luck in coincidence, or believe in omens and divination.
The dreamlike language of James Joyce's "novel" ''Finnegans Wake'' sheds light on nonsense in a similar way; full of portmanteau words, it ''appears'' to be pregnant with multiple layers of meaning, but in many passages it is difficult to say whether any one person's interpretation of a text is the "intended" or "correct" one. There may in fact be no such interpretation.
Nonsense verse represents a long tradition; its best known exponent is Edward Lear, author of ''The Owl and the Pussycat'' and hundreds of limericks. But it dates back to King Lear and beyond; the nursery rhyme ''Hey Diddle Diddle'' is also a sort of nonsense verse. There are also some things which ''appear'' to nonsense verse, but actually are not, such as the popular 40's song "Mairzey Doats".[1]. Riddles only appear to be nonsense until the answer is found.
In the field of Art, the Dada movement resembles nonsense in certain ways, but is also quite distinct from it. As a genre, nonsense has no particular agenda, though it may imply a kind of subversion in various ways. Dada was more directed, creating an expression of disaffection with art and a society that seemed unavoidably addicted to the insanity of war.
1. Tigges 166-167
2. Heyman xxvi-xxxi
3. Malcolm 127-
Heyman, Michael, "An Indian Nonsense Naissance" in ''The Tenth Rasa: An Anthology of Indian Nonsense'', edited by Michael Heyman, with Sumanyu Satpathy and Anushka Ravishankar. New Delhi: Penguin, 2007.
Tigges, Wim. ”An Anatomy of Nonsense” in ''Dutch Quarterly Review'' 16: 162-85, 1986, pp. 166-7.
'Primary sources'
Carroll, Lewis (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), ''Alice in Wonderland'', 1865, ed. Donald J. Gray, 2nd edition (London: Norton, 1992)
_________. ''The Complete Works of Lewis Carroll'' (London: Nonesuch Press, 1940)
Daly, Nicholas. ''A Wanderer in Og''. (Cape Town: Double Storey Books, 2005)
Gordon, Mike. ''Mike's Corner: Daunting Literary Snippets from Phish's Bassist''. Boston: Bulfinch Press, 1997.
Gorey, Edward. ''Amphigorey'', (New York: Perigee, 1972)
_________. ''Amphigorey too'', (New York: Perigee, 1975)
_________. ''Amphigorey Also'', (Harvest, 1983)
_________. ''Amphigorey Again'', (Barnes & Noble, 2002)
Kipling, Rudyard, ''Just So Stories'' (New York: Signet, 1912)
Lear, Edward, ''The Complete Verse and Other Nonsense''. Ed. Vivian Noakes (London: Penguin, 2001)
Lennon, John, ''Skywriting by Word of Mouth and other writings, including The Ballad of John and Yoko'' (New York: Perennial, 1986.
_________. ''The Writings of John Lennon: In His Own Write, A Spaniard in the Works'' (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1964, 1965)
Milligan, Spike, Silly Verse for Kinds (London: Puffin, 1968)
Peake, Mervyn, ''A Book of Nonsense'' (London: Picador, 1972)
_________. ''Captain Slaughterboard Drops Anchor'' (London: Country Life Book, 1939)
_________. ''Titus Groan'' (London: Methuen, 1946)
Ravishankar, Anushka, ''Excuse Me Is This India?'' illus. by Anita Leutwiler, Chennai: Tara Publishing, 2001.
_________. ''Wish You Were Here'', Chennai: Tara Publishing, 2003.
_________. ''Today is My Day'', illus. Piet Grobler, Chennai: Tara Publishing, 2003.
Richards, Laura E., ''I Have a Song to Sing You: Still More Rhymes'', illus. Reginald Birch (New York, London: D. Appleton--Century Company, 1938)
_________. ''Tirra Lirra: Rhymes Old and New'', illus. Marguerite Davis (London: George G. Harrap, 1933)
Rosen, Michael, ''Michael Rosen’s Book of Nonsense'', illus. Claire Mackie (Hove: Macdonald Young Books, 1997)
Sandburg, Carl, ''Rootabaga Stories'' (London: George G. Harrap, 1924)
_________. ''More Rootabaga Stories''
Seuss, Dr. ''On Beyond Zebra''New York: Random House, 1955.
Thurber, James, ''The 13 Clocks'', 1950, (New York: Dell, 1990)
Watts, Alan, ''Nonsense'' (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1975; originally Stolen Paper Review Editions, 1967)
'Anthologies'
''The Chatto Book of Nonsense Poetry'', ed. Hugh Haughton (London: Chatto & Windus, 1988)
''The Everyman Book of Nonsense Verse'', ed. Louise Guinness (New York: Everyman, 2004)
''The Faber Book of Nonsense Verse'', ed. Geoffrey Grigson (London: Faber, 1979)
''A Nonsense Anthology'', collected by Carolyn Wells (New York: Charles Schribner's Sons, 1902)
''O, What Nonsense!'', selected by William Cole, illus. Tomi Ungerer. (London: Methuen & Co., 1966)
''The Puffin Book of Nonsense Verse'', selected and illus. Quentin Blake (London: Puffin, 1994)
''The Tenth Rasa: An Anthology of Indian Nonsense'', ed. Michael Heyman, with Sumanyu Satpathy and Anushka Ravishankar (New Delhi: Penguin, 2007). The blog for this book and Indian nonsense: [2]
'Secondary sources'
Andersen, Jorgen, “Edward Lear and the Origin of Nonsense,” English Studies, 31 (1950), 161-166
Baker, William, “T.S. Eliot on Edward Lear: An Unnoted Attribution,” English Studies, 64 (1983), 564-566
Bouissac, Paul, “Decoding Limericks: A Structuralist Approach,” Semiotica, 19 (1977), 1-12
Byrom, Thomas, ''Nonsense and Wonder: The Poems and Cartoons of Edward Lear'' (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1977)
Cammaerts, Emile, ''The Poetry of Nonsense'' (London: Routledge, 1925)
Chesterton, G.K., “A Defence of Nonsense,” in The Defendant (London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1914), pp. 42-50
Chitty, Susan, ''That Singular Person Called Lear'' (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1988)
Colley, Ann C., Edward Lear and the Critics (Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1993)
_________. “Edward Lear’s Limericks and the Reversals of Nonsense,” Victorian Poetry, 29 (1988), 285-299
_________. “The Limerick and the Space of Metaphor,” Genre, 21 (Spring 1988), 65-91.
Cuddon, J.A., ed., revised by C.E. Preston, “Nonsense,” in A Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, 4th edition (Oxford: Blackwell, 1976, 1998), pp. 551-58
Davidson, Angus, Edward Lear: Landscape Painter and Nonsense Poet (London: John Murray, 1938)
Deleuze, Gilles, The Logic of Sense, trans. Mark Lester with Charles Stivale, ed. Constantin V. Boundas (London: The Athlone Press, (French version 1969), 1990)
Dilworth, Thomas, “Edward Lear’s Suicide Limerick,” The Review of English Studies, 184 (1995), 535-38
_________. “Society and the Self in the Limericks of Lear,” The Review of English Studies, 177 (1994), 42-62
Dolitsky, Marlene, Under the Tumtum Tree: From Nonsense to Sense (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1984)
Ede, Lisa S., “The Nonsense Literature of Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll” (unpublished PhD dissertation, Ohio State University, 1975)
_________. “Edward Lear’s Limericks and Their Illustrations” in Explorations in the Field of Nonsense, ed. Wim Tigges (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1987), pp. 101-116
_________. “An Introduction to the Nonsense Literature of Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll” in Explorations in the Field of Nonsense, ed. Wim Tigges (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1987), pp. 47-60
Flescher, Jacqueline, “The language of nonsense in Alice,” Yale French Studies, 43 (1969-70) 128-44
Graziosi, Marco, “The Limerick” on Edward Lear Home Page (http://www2.pair.com/mgraz/Lear/index.html)
Guiliano, Edward, “A Time for Humor: Lewis Carroll, Laughter and Despair, and The Hunting of the Snark” in Lewis Carroll: A Celebration, ed. Edward Guiliano (New York, 1982), pp. 123-131
Haight, M.R., “Nonsense,” British Journal of Aesthetics, 11 (1971), 247-56
Hark, Ina Rae, Edward Lear (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1982)
_________. “Edward Lear: Eccentricity and Victorian Angst,” Victorian Poetry, 16 (1978),112-122
Heyman, Michael, ''Isles of Boshen: Edward Lear in Context''. PhD dissertation, University of Glasgow, 1999. [3]
_________. "A New Defense of Nonsense; or, 'Where is his phallus?' and other questions not to ask" in Children's Literature Association Quarterly, Winter 1999-2000. Volume 24, Number 4 (186-194)
_________. "An Indian Nonsense Naissance" in ''The Tenth Rasa: An Anthology of Indian Nonsense'', edited by Michael Heyman, with Sumanyu Satpathy and Anushka Ravishankar. New Delhi: Penguin, 2007.
Hilbert, Richard A., “Approaching Reason’s Edge: ‘Nonsense’ as the Final Solution to the Problem of Meaning,” Sociological Inquiry, 47.1 (1977), 25-31
Huxley, Aldous, “Edward Lear,” in ''On the Margin'' (London: Chatto & Windus, 1923), pp. 167-172
Lecercle, Jean-Jacques, ''Philosophy of Nonsense: The Intuitions of Victorian Nonsense Literature'' (London, New York: Routledge, 1994)
Lehmann, John, ''Edward Lear and his World'' (Norwich: Thames and Hudson, 1977)
Malcolm, Noel, ''The Origins of English Nonsense'' (London: Fontana/HarperCollins, 1997)
McGillis, Rod, "Nonsense," ''A Companion to victorian poetry'', ed. by Richard Cronin, Alison Chapman, and Anthony Harrison. Oxford: Blackwell, 2002. 155-170.
Noakes, Vivien, ''Edward Lear: The Life of a Wanderer'', 1968 (Glasgow: Fontana/Collins, revised edition 1979)
_________. ''Edward Lear, 1812-1888'' (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1985)
Nock, S. A., “Lacrimae Nugarum: Edward Lear of the Nonsense Verses,” Sewanee Review, 49 (1941), 68-81
Orwell, George, “Nonsense Poetry” in ''Shooting an Elephant and Other Essays'' (London: Secker and Warburg, 1950), pp. 179-184
Osgood Field, William B., ''Edward Lear on my Shelves'' (New York: Privately Printed, 1933)
Partridge, E., “The Nonsense Words of Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll,” in Here, There and Everywhere: Essays Upon Language, 2nd revised edition (London: Hamilton, 1978)
Prickett, Stephen, ''Victorian Fantasy'' (Hassocks: The Harvester Press, 1979)
Reike, Alison, ''The Senses of Nonsense'' (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1992)
Robinson, Fred Miller, “Nonsense and Sadness in Donald Barthelme and Edward Lear,” South Atlantic Quarterly, 80 (1981), 164-76
Sewell, Elizabeth, ''The Field of Nonsense'' (London: Chatto and Windus, 1952)
Stewart, Susan, ''Nonsense: Aspects of Intertextuality in Folklore and Literature'' (Baltimore: The John’s Hopkins UP, 1979)
Tigges, Wim, ''An Anatomy of Literary Nonsense'' (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1988)
_________. “The Limerick: The Sonnet of Nonsense?” Dutch Quarterly Review, 16 (1986), 220-236
_________. ed., ''Explorations in the Field of Nonsense'' (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1987)
van Leeuwen, Hendrik, “The Liaison of Visual and Written Nonsense,” in Explorations in the Field of Nonsense, ed. Wim Tigges (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1987), pp. 61-95
Wells, Carolyn, “The Sense of Nonsense,” Scribner’s Magazine, 29 (1901), 239-48
Willis, Gary, “Two Different Kettles of Talking Fish: The Nonsense of Lear and Carroll,” Jabberwocky, 9 (1980), 87-94
Wullschläger, Jackie, ''Inventing Wonderland, The Lives and Fantasies of Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, J.M. Barrie, Kenneth Grahame, and A.A. Milne'' (London: Methuen, 1995)
Edward Lear homepage
A blog of Edward Lear and nonsense news...
Lewis Carroll homepage run by the Lewis Carroll Society in America
The blog for Indian nonsense and the Tenth Rasa
Dr. Seuss site by Random House
Edward Gorey site
| Contents |
| Audience |
| Nonsense artists |
| Theory |
| Other media |
| References |
| Works cited |
| Further reading |
| External links |
Audience
While much nonsense from the nineteenth century onward has been written for children, the genre has a much longer history in adult forms. Noel Malcolm, in his book ''The Origins of English Nonsense,'' gives a good history of the genre in its adult form, starting with figures such as John Hoskyns, Henry Peacham, John Sanford, and John Taylor (all early seventeenth century).[3] It has also appeared as an important element in the works of figures such as James Joyce, Flann O'Brien, and Eugene Ionesco. Literary nonsense, as opposed to folk forms of nonsense that have always existed, was first written for children in the early nineteenth century. It was popularized by Edward Lear, and later by Lewis Carroll. Regardless of the intended audience, it is usually enjoyed by both adults and children for its careful artistry, absurd logic, adherence to form, delight in sound, sense of play, and subversive tendencies.
Nonsense artists
The two most celebrated nonsense writers in English are Edward Lear (1812-1888) and Lewis Carroll (1832-1898), although nonsense existed in English long before the nineteenth century. Lewis Carroll is known for the poem "Jabberwocky", which appears in ''Through the Looking-Glass''. His other literary nonsense works include ''The Hunting of the Snark'' and ''She's All My Fancy Painted Him'', among others.
Some of the most talented writers in English who have contributed to the genre are: Mervyn Peake, Edward Gorey, Flann O'Brien, Alan Watts, Dr. Seuss, Carl Sandburg, Laura E. Richards, Spike Milligan,Jack Prelutsky, Shel Silverstein, John Lennon, Michael Rosen, Anushka Ravishankar, Mike Gordon, and James Thurber.
Theory
The sentence "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously" was coined by Noam Chomsky as an example of nonsense. The individual words make sense, and are arranged according to proper grammar, yet the result is still nonsense. The inspiration for this attempt at creating verbal nonsense came from the idea of contradiction and irrelevant or immaterial characteristics (an idea may have a dimension of color, yet it is first specified to be without hue), both of which would be sure to make a phrase meaningless. The phrase "the square root of Tuesday" operates on the latter principle. This principle is behind the inscrutability of the koan "What is the sound of one hand clapping?", as one hand would supposedly require another hand to complete the definition of clapping.
Still, the human will to find meaning is strong; ''green ideas'' might be ideas associated with a Green party in politics, and ''colorless green ideas'' criticises some of them as uninspiring. For some, the human impulse to find meaning in what is actually random or nonsensical is what makes people find luck in coincidence, or believe in omens and divination.
The dreamlike language of James Joyce's "novel" ''Finnegans Wake'' sheds light on nonsense in a similar way; full of portmanteau words, it ''appears'' to be pregnant with multiple layers of meaning, but in many passages it is difficult to say whether any one person's interpretation of a text is the "intended" or "correct" one. There may in fact be no such interpretation.
Nonsense verse represents a long tradition; its best known exponent is Edward Lear, author of ''The Owl and the Pussycat'' and hundreds of limericks. But it dates back to King Lear and beyond; the nursery rhyme ''Hey Diddle Diddle'' is also a sort of nonsense verse. There are also some things which ''appear'' to nonsense verse, but actually are not, such as the popular 40's song "Mairzey Doats".[1]. Riddles only appear to be nonsense until the answer is found.
Other media
In the field of Art, the Dada movement resembles nonsense in certain ways, but is also quite distinct from it. As a genre, nonsense has no particular agenda, though it may imply a kind of subversion in various ways. Dada was more directed, creating an expression of disaffection with art and a society that seemed unavoidably addicted to the insanity of war.
References
1. Tigges 166-167
2. Heyman xxvi-xxxi
3. Malcolm 127-
Works cited
Heyman, Michael, "An Indian Nonsense Naissance" in ''The Tenth Rasa: An Anthology of Indian Nonsense'', edited by Michael Heyman, with Sumanyu Satpathy and Anushka Ravishankar. New Delhi: Penguin, 2007.
Tigges, Wim. ”An Anatomy of Nonsense” in ''Dutch Quarterly Review'' 16: 162-85, 1986, pp. 166-7.
Further reading
'Primary sources'
Carroll, Lewis (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), ''Alice in Wonderland'', 1865, ed. Donald J. Gray, 2nd edition (London: Norton, 1992)
_________. ''The Complete Works of Lewis Carroll'' (London: Nonesuch Press, 1940)
Daly, Nicholas. ''A Wanderer in Og''. (Cape Town: Double Storey Books, 2005)
Gordon, Mike. ''Mike's Corner: Daunting Literary Snippets from Phish's Bassist''. Boston: Bulfinch Press, 1997.
Gorey, Edward. ''Amphigorey'', (New York: Perigee, 1972)
_________. ''Amphigorey too'', (New York: Perigee, 1975)
_________. ''Amphigorey Also'', (Harvest, 1983)
_________. ''Amphigorey Again'', (Barnes & Noble, 2002)
Kipling, Rudyard, ''Just So Stories'' (New York: Signet, 1912)
Lear, Edward, ''The Complete Verse and Other Nonsense''. Ed. Vivian Noakes (London: Penguin, 2001)
Lennon, John, ''Skywriting by Word of Mouth and other writings, including The Ballad of John and Yoko'' (New York: Perennial, 1986.
_________. ''The Writings of John Lennon: In His Own Write, A Spaniard in the Works'' (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1964, 1965)
Milligan, Spike, Silly Verse for Kinds (London: Puffin, 1968)
Peake, Mervyn, ''A Book of Nonsense'' (London: Picador, 1972)
_________. ''Captain Slaughterboard Drops Anchor'' (London: Country Life Book, 1939)
_________. ''Titus Groan'' (London: Methuen, 1946)
Ravishankar, Anushka, ''Excuse Me Is This India?'' illus. by Anita Leutwiler, Chennai: Tara Publishing, 2001.
_________. ''Wish You Were Here'', Chennai: Tara Publishing, 2003.
_________. ''Today is My Day'', illus. Piet Grobler, Chennai: Tara Publishing, 2003.
Richards, Laura E., ''I Have a Song to Sing You: Still More Rhymes'', illus. Reginald Birch (New York, London: D. Appleton--Century Company, 1938)
_________. ''Tirra Lirra: Rhymes Old and New'', illus. Marguerite Davis (London: George G. Harrap, 1933)
Rosen, Michael, ''Michael Rosen’s Book of Nonsense'', illus. Claire Mackie (Hove: Macdonald Young Books, 1997)
Sandburg, Carl, ''Rootabaga Stories'' (London: George G. Harrap, 1924)
_________. ''More Rootabaga Stories''
Seuss, Dr. ''On Beyond Zebra''New York: Random House, 1955.
Thurber, James, ''The 13 Clocks'', 1950, (New York: Dell, 1990)
Watts, Alan, ''Nonsense'' (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1975; originally Stolen Paper Review Editions, 1967)
'Anthologies'
''The Chatto Book of Nonsense Poetry'', ed. Hugh Haughton (London: Chatto & Windus, 1988)
''The Everyman Book of Nonsense Verse'', ed. Louise Guinness (New York: Everyman, 2004)
''The Faber Book of Nonsense Verse'', ed. Geoffrey Grigson (London: Faber, 1979)
''A Nonsense Anthology'', collected by Carolyn Wells (New York: Charles Schribner's Sons, 1902)
''O, What Nonsense!'', selected by William Cole, illus. Tomi Ungerer. (London: Methuen & Co., 1966)
''The Puffin Book of Nonsense Verse'', selected and illus. Quentin Blake (London: Puffin, 1994)
''The Tenth Rasa: An Anthology of Indian Nonsense'', ed. Michael Heyman, with Sumanyu Satpathy and Anushka Ravishankar (New Delhi: Penguin, 2007). The blog for this book and Indian nonsense: [2]
'Secondary sources'
Andersen, Jorgen, “Edward Lear and the Origin of Nonsense,” English Studies, 31 (1950), 161-166
Baker, William, “T.S. Eliot on Edward Lear: An Unnoted Attribution,” English Studies, 64 (1983), 564-566
Bouissac, Paul, “Decoding Limericks: A Structuralist Approach,” Semiotica, 19 (1977), 1-12
Byrom, Thomas, ''Nonsense and Wonder: The Poems and Cartoons of Edward Lear'' (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1977)
Cammaerts, Emile, ''The Poetry of Nonsense'' (London: Routledge, 1925)
Chesterton, G.K., “A Defence of Nonsense,” in The Defendant (London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1914), pp. 42-50
Chitty, Susan, ''That Singular Person Called Lear'' (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1988)
Colley, Ann C., Edward Lear and the Critics (Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1993)
_________. “Edward Lear’s Limericks and the Reversals of Nonsense,” Victorian Poetry, 29 (1988), 285-299
_________. “The Limerick and the Space of Metaphor,” Genre, 21 (Spring 1988), 65-91.
Cuddon, J.A., ed., revised by C.E. Preston, “Nonsense,” in A Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, 4th edition (Oxford: Blackwell, 1976, 1998), pp. 551-58
Davidson, Angus, Edward Lear: Landscape Painter and Nonsense Poet (London: John Murray, 1938)
Deleuze, Gilles, The Logic of Sense, trans. Mark Lester with Charles Stivale, ed. Constantin V. Boundas (London: The Athlone Press, (French version 1969), 1990)
Dilworth, Thomas, “Edward Lear’s Suicide Limerick,” The Review of English Studies, 184 (1995), 535-38
_________. “Society and the Self in the Limericks of Lear,” The Review of English Studies, 177 (1994), 42-62
Dolitsky, Marlene, Under the Tumtum Tree: From Nonsense to Sense (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1984)
Ede, Lisa S., “The Nonsense Literature of Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll” (unpublished PhD dissertation, Ohio State University, 1975)
_________. “Edward Lear’s Limericks and Their Illustrations” in Explorations in the Field of Nonsense, ed. Wim Tigges (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1987), pp. 101-116
_________. “An Introduction to the Nonsense Literature of Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll” in Explorations in the Field of Nonsense, ed. Wim Tigges (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1987), pp. 47-60
Flescher, Jacqueline, “The language of nonsense in Alice,” Yale French Studies, 43 (1969-70) 128-44
Graziosi, Marco, “The Limerick” on Edward Lear Home Page (http://www2.pair.com/mgraz/Lear/index.html)
Guiliano, Edward, “A Time for Humor: Lewis Carroll, Laughter and Despair, and The Hunting of the Snark” in Lewis Carroll: A Celebration, ed. Edward Guiliano (New York, 1982), pp. 123-131
Haight, M.R., “Nonsense,” British Journal of Aesthetics, 11 (1971), 247-56
Hark, Ina Rae, Edward Lear (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1982)
_________. “Edward Lear: Eccentricity and Victorian Angst,” Victorian Poetry, 16 (1978),112-122
Heyman, Michael, ''Isles of Boshen: Edward Lear in Context''. PhD dissertation, University of Glasgow, 1999. [3]
_________. "A New Defense of Nonsense; or, 'Where is his phallus?' and other questions not to ask" in Children's Literature Association Quarterly, Winter 1999-2000. Volume 24, Number 4 (186-194)
_________. "An Indian Nonsense Naissance" in ''The Tenth Rasa: An Anthology of Indian Nonsense'', edited by Michael Heyman, with Sumanyu Satpathy and Anushka Ravishankar. New Delhi: Penguin, 2007.
Hilbert, Richard A., “Approaching Reason’s Edge: ‘Nonsense’ as the Final Solution to the Problem of Meaning,” Sociological Inquiry, 47.1 (1977), 25-31
Huxley, Aldous, “Edward Lear,” in ''On the Margin'' (London: Chatto & Windus, 1923), pp. 167-172
Lecercle, Jean-Jacques, ''Philosophy of Nonsense: The Intuitions of Victorian Nonsense Literature'' (London, New York: Routledge, 1994)
Lehmann, John, ''Edward Lear and his World'' (Norwich: Thames and Hudson, 1977)
Malcolm, Noel, ''The Origins of English Nonsense'' (London: Fontana/HarperCollins, 1997)
McGillis, Rod, "Nonsense," ''A Companion to victorian poetry'', ed. by Richard Cronin, Alison Chapman, and Anthony Harrison. Oxford: Blackwell, 2002. 155-170.
Noakes, Vivien, ''Edward Lear: The Life of a Wanderer'', 1968 (Glasgow: Fontana/Collins, revised edition 1979)
_________. ''Edward Lear, 1812-1888'' (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1985)
Nock, S. A., “Lacrimae Nugarum: Edward Lear of the Nonsense Verses,” Sewanee Review, 49 (1941), 68-81
Orwell, George, “Nonsense Poetry” in ''Shooting an Elephant and Other Essays'' (London: Secker and Warburg, 1950), pp. 179-184
Osgood Field, William B., ''Edward Lear on my Shelves'' (New York: Privately Printed, 1933)
Partridge, E., “The Nonsense Words of Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll,” in Here, There and Everywhere: Essays Upon Language, 2nd revised edition (London: Hamilton, 1978)
Prickett, Stephen, ''Victorian Fantasy'' (Hassocks: The Harvester Press, 1979)
Reike, Alison, ''The Senses of Nonsense'' (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1992)
Robinson, Fred Miller, “Nonsense and Sadness in Donald Barthelme and Edward Lear,” South Atlantic Quarterly, 80 (1981), 164-76
Sewell, Elizabeth, ''The Field of Nonsense'' (London: Chatto and Windus, 1952)
Stewart, Susan, ''Nonsense: Aspects of Intertextuality in Folklore and Literature'' (Baltimore: The John’s Hopkins UP, 1979)
Tigges, Wim, ''An Anatomy of Literary Nonsense'' (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1988)
_________. “The Limerick: The Sonnet of Nonsense?” Dutch Quarterly Review, 16 (1986), 220-236
_________. ed., ''Explorations in the Field of Nonsense'' (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1987)
van Leeuwen, Hendrik, “The Liaison of Visual and Written Nonsense,” in Explorations in the Field of Nonsense, ed. Wim Tigges (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1987), pp. 61-95
Wells, Carolyn, “The Sense of Nonsense,” Scribner’s Magazine, 29 (1901), 239-48
Willis, Gary, “Two Different Kettles of Talking Fish: The Nonsense of Lear and Carroll,” Jabberwocky, 9 (1980), 87-94
Wullschläger, Jackie, ''Inventing Wonderland, The Lives and Fantasies of Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, J.M. Barrie, Kenneth Grahame, and A.A. Milne'' (London: Methuen, 1995)
External links
Edward Lear homepage
A blog of Edward Lear and nonsense news...
Lewis Carroll homepage run by the Lewis Carroll Society in America
The blog for Indian nonsense and the Tenth Rasa
Dr. Seuss site by Random House
Edward Gorey site
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