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lim·er·ick:
a kind of witty, humorous or nonsense poem of five lines, in which the first, second, and fifth lines rhyme with each other, and the third and fourth lines, which are shorter, form a rhymed couplet.
The rhyme scheme is AABBA
- There once was a young man from Kew
- Who found a dead mouse in his stew.
- Said the waiter, “Don't shout
- Or wave it about,
- Or the rest will be wanting one too!”
A - There once was a young man from Kew
A - Who found a dead mouse in his stew.
B - Said the waiter, “Don't shout
B - Or wave it about,
A - Or the rest will be wanting one too!”
The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
The following example of a limerick is of unknown origin:
- The limerick packs laughs anatomical
- In space that is quite economical,
- But the good ones I've seen
- So seldom are clean,
- And the clean ones so seldom are comical.
A - The limerick packs laughs anatomical
A - In space that is quite economical,
B - But the good ones I've seen
B - So seldom are clean,
A - And the clean ones so seldom are comical.
Limerick origins
The origin of the name limerick for this type of poem is still debated. As of several years ago, its usage was first documented in England in 1898
(New English Dictionary) and in America in 1902, but in recent years several earlier uses have been documented. The most popular theory is that they were originated from the county and city in Ireland. (County Limerick, Ire) where it is usually attributed to a party game in which each guest in turn made up a nonsense verse and all sang a refrain with the line "Will you come up to Limerick?"
Another popular theory is that the form's earliest roots can be found in13th
Century Italy, in the divine prayer of the Catholic priest and philosopher,
Thomas Aquinas. Also that William Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth I of
England were rumored to have written in limerick form as well, though we
can assume both Shakespeare and the Queen's verses probably would have
been slightly more humorous in tone than those of Thomas Aquinas.
The first collections in English date from c. 1820. Early examples, notably those of Edward Lear in his Book of Nonsense (1846), use the same rhyming word at the end of the first and last lines, but most modern limericks avoid such repetition. The limerick is almost always a self-contained, humorous poem, and usually plays on rhymes involving the names of people or places. It was popularized by Lear and soon became a favorite form for the witty obscenities of anonymous writers, poets and humorists.
Gershon Legman, the American cultural critic who once compiled the largest written collection containing over 1700 examples, called aptly “The Limerick”, held that the true limerick as a folk form is always obscene. He cites similar opinions by writer George Bernard Shaw, describing the clean limerick as a fad and object of magazine contests, rarely rising above mediocrity. From a folkloric point of view, the form is essentially transgressive; violation of taboo is part of its function.
Forms
The standard form of a limerick is a stanza of five lines, with the first, second and fifth usually rhyming with one another and having three feet, or lines, of three syllables each; and the shorter third and fourth lines also rhyming with each other, but having only two feet (lines) of three syllables. The first line traditionally introduces a person and a place, with the place appearing at the end of the first line and establishing the rhyme scheme for the second and fifth lines. In early limericks, the last line was often essentially a repeat of the first line, although this is no longer customary.
Sources
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms
Dictionary of Cultural Literacy
Wikipedia – The free encyclopedia
The Limerick, Random House. Legman, Gershon (1988).
http://www.mahalo.com/
For More information Read
The Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form
http://www.oedilf.com/db/Lim.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limerick_%28poetry%29
Edward Lear's A Book of Nonsense
Clean Limericks For Children
http://www.brownielocks.com/kidlimericks.html
The Limerick, Random House. Legman, Gershon (1988).
Hawaii State Public Library System
Keyword search: Limericks
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