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Jacob Doetsch
Mrs. Duneman, English 4
December 10th, 2004
The Societal Influent of Edward Lear: Then and Now
	Literary innovations were abundant in the 19th century. These innovations came from many literary figures, each with their own unique life experiences. Landscape artist, traveler, and poet Edward Lear was one of many great British poets of the time. He is credited with the popularization of the limerick, which he used to pacify his wealthy client's children. Lear's works had great impact on the contemporary society of his time, and his popularization of the limerick has made it a permanent and commonplace genre of rhymed poetry.
	Edward Lear was born in Highgate, London on May 12th, 1812. He was the 20th child of Jeremiah Lear, a London Stockbroker, and his wife Ann. Soon after Edward was born, his father lost most of his money and the family had to adapt to a lower standard of living. When he was six, Edward started experiencing epileptic fits. A few years later he started experiencing periods of severe depression. He continued to suffer from these ailments for the rest of his life.
	For most of his life, Edward Lear was raised and educated by his oldest sister, Ann, who was 22 years older than he. She exposed him to the classical and modern literature of their time. More specifically, she exposed him to poetry, in all its different forms. She also helped him develop his drawing abilities.
	At age 15, he started selling his poems and illustrations. As an adult, he earned a living illustrating birds for scientific journals and resource books. Later in his life, he became a freelance landscape painter.  As he was painting for wealthy clients, Lear would make up or recite limericks to pacify their children. "Lear's success as a landscape painter was rather short-lived, and he gradually became disillusioned by the lack of interest in his work" (Olsholt, 1). Lear's successful 
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career as a freelance artist did not last long. His enthusiasm and passion for painting was swiftly deteriorating and he felt that this work was meaningless.
	Lear spent most of his adult life traveling, more specifically to the Mediterranean countries. During his travels, he drew the landscapes and animals that he saw. He eventually settled into a house in San Remo, Italy. He died on May 29, 1888 at the age of 75.
	Another famous writer living at the same time as Lear was Lewis Carroll. Carroll was the author of many children's books, the most famous of which is Alice in Wonderland.  Lear and Carroll's works where quite different from those of the time.  "Earnestness was a trademark of Victorian society. Victorian children were therefore brought up very strictly, and their education did not leave much room for humour or laughter" [sic] (Olsholt, 2). The Victorian era was an era of strictness and seriousness. Most literature that the Victorian population was exposed to was quite serious, and lacked humor. Lear and Carroll became the pioneers of a style that quickly became popular in Victorian society. Their style was identified as nonsense literature. Their writing was a welcome relief from the monotony of the serious literature of the time. However, Lear and Carroll's approach to nonsense were quite different.
	"Lewis Carroll's 'nonsense' is a reversal or parody of ordinary logic. He plays on the meaning of words, and his writing style itself is prosaic. Edward Lear's 'nonsense' is a true absence of logic; he plays on the sound of words and his writing style is poetic" (Wikipedia, Edward Lear). Lewis Carroll's approach to nonsense is to make a farse on rational thought, and to manipulate words to have new, illogical meanings. This irrationality is what makes Carroll's works humorous and enjoyable. Lear's approach to nonsense is that of making a mockery of the world around him, and to use the sound of words to make the writing seem poetic. His poems are often devoid of a punch-line.

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	The first edition of Lear's A Book of Nonsense, a collection of children's limericks, was published in 1846. "Lear actually referred to his own poems as 'nonsense, pure and absolute'. In fact, Lear himself never used the term 'limerick', but called his poems nonsense rhymes" [sic] (Olsholt, 3). The term 'limerick' for his style of poetry wasn't used until his death in 1888. The origin of the word 'limerick' is still a mystery. The limerick had existed for several hundred years before Lear popularized it.
	By definition, a limerick is "a light or humorous verse form of 5 chiefly anapestic verses of which lines 1, 2, and 5 are of 3 feet and lines 3 and 4 are of 2 feet with a rhyme scheme of aabba" (Merriam Webster Online, 'limerick'). Typically, Lear's limericks read in the rhyme scheme of 'aabba.' The last syllable of the first and second lines rhyme, as do the syllables in the third and fourth lines. The word at the end of the first and fifth lines are identical. The perfect example of this is:
"There was a Young Lady whose nose,
Was so long that it reached to her toes;
So she hired an Old Lady,
Whose conduct was steady,
To carry that wonderful nose" (A Book of Nonsense, 41).
	One of Lear's most famous limericks is about an 'old man with a beard.' In the limerick we learn that the man's beard is so large that two owls, a hen, a lark, and a wren have mistaken his beard for a nest. We also learn that this is the old man's worst fear. He is fearful of this because he is most likely unable to trim his beard, which tells us that he is a very old man. Today, humor is still found by reading the limerick of the old man with a beard. A perfect example of Lear's nonsense writing is the limerick of the 'old man with the nose.' Whenever he was questioned about 
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his nose, he would reply that his nose is not too long. The old man believes that a nose can never be too long.
	Lear did not just write limericks. One of Lear's most famous non-limerick poems is The Owl and the Pussycat. An Owl and a Pussy-Cat traveled out to sea. In the first stanza of the poem, the Owl professes his feelings for the Pussy-Cat by complementing the Cat's beauty. The Owl says that because the Cat is so beautiful that he is in love. In the second stanza, the Cat manifests her love for the Owls elegance and sweet, charming voice. The Cat suggests that the two should get married, and that they have waited too long to do so. They continue to travel by sea for a "year and a day" and end up on an island inhabited by a pig. The pig possessed a ring, which the Cat and Owl needed to get married. They asked the pig if he was willing to sell his ring and concurred. The next day, the Owl and Cat were married by a turkey. In the evening, they danced on the shore of the island. At the end of each stanza, the last two words of the final line are repeated, twice, and then the final line is repeated. By using this repetition, Lear is able to engrave the picture painted by the stanza into our minds.
	A lesson can be learned from Lear's poem, The Pobble Who Has No Toes. A pobble decided to swim across the Bristol Channel. Before he left, he was warned by his aunt that if he did not cover his nose, he would surely lose his toes. The pobble covered his nose with a piece of flannel and departed. As he was approaching the other side of the channel, a tortoise swam up to him and stole his piece of flannel, thus leaving his nose exposed. When he got out of the water, he saw that he had no toes. This had happened because he was not paying attention to the piece of flannel when the tortoise took it. We learn that we must protect whatever is crucial to the security of something else. Lear's poem, The Jumblies, is about a few jumblies that decided to go to sea and start a new life wherever they ended up. In spite of their friend's criticism of the idea, the jumblies decide to depart anyway. They sail away in a sieve, with a tobacco-pipe mast and veil 
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sail. During their voyage, the jumblies maintained high moral. They sailed to a land covered with trees and started a new life there. After twenty years, they decided to go back to visit their friends. Their friends were jealous of them and regretted not sailing away with them.
	Edward Lear presented the Victorian era with humor and nonsense, which was a relief from the monotony of strictness found in Victorian society. His creative manipulation of words painted beautiful pictures in the minds of his readers. The authors of modern poetry seldom paint vivid images for their readers. Edward Lear's works had a positive impact on the contemporary society of his time and his popularization of the limerick has helped it become a style of rhymed poetry that is still in use today.