Lear wouldn’t dare to leer, dear

We’re a couple of frigid months away from St. Patrick’s Day , but I’m already gearing up for The Spokesman-Review’s annual limericks contest. I’m doing so by studying the work of the “father” of the modern limerick, Edward Lear .

Born in 1812, this 21st child of a London stockbroker spent his life painting and writing and, by the time he had to good sense to die at age 77 in that best of all possible countries, Italy, he was most known for what he called his “nonsense” verse, the most famous example being “The Owl and the Pussycat” :

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat:
They took some honey,
and plenty of money
Wrapped up in a five-pound note.

The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
“O lovely Pussy, O Pussy, my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!”

Most of Lear’s limericks appear fairly rough when compared to the more sophisticated rhymes, turns of phrase and ironic sentiments of the best of modern limericks . Worse, none has the element that has come to be as closely associated with limericks as the mispronounced word nuke-you-lar is with red-state sentimentality: namely, bawdiness and sexual wordplay. For example:

There was a Young Lady from Norway
Who casually sat in a doorway;
When the door squeezed her flat,
She exclaimed, “What of that?”
This courageous Young Lady of Norway.

Like many artists whose ambitions were not as great as their talents, Lear came to regret his fame as a limerist. In fact, maybe his best example of the form came in his single attempt to explain his disappointment:

A goddess capricious is Fame.
You may strive to make noted your name,
But she either neglects you
Or coolly selects you
For laurels distinct from your aim!

But what a pretty goddess she is, she is, she is. What a pretty goddess she is.