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A limerick is a five-line poem in anapestic or amphibrachic meter with a strict rhyme scheme (aabba), which intends to be witty or humorous, and is sometimes obscene with humorous intent. It may have its roots in the 18th-century Maigue Poets of Ireland, although the form can be found in England in the early years of the century. It was popularized in English by Edward Lear in the 19th century.

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.

Gershon Legman, who compiled the largest and most scholarly anthology, held that the true limerick as a folk form is always obscene, and cites similar opinions by Arnold Bennett and George Bernard Shaw, describing the clean limerick as a periodic 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.

Form

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 of three syllables each; and the shorter third and fourth lines also rhyming with each other, but having only two feet of three syllables. The defining "foot" of a limerick's meter is usually the anapaest, (ta-ta-TUM), but limericks can also be considered amphibrachic (ta-TUM-ta).

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.

Within the genre, ordinary speech stress is often distorted in the first line, and may be regarded as a feature of the form: "There was a young man from the coast;" "There once was a girl from Detroit…" Legman takes this as a convention whereby prosody is violated simultaneously with propriety. Exploitation of geographical names, especially exotic ones, is also common, and has been seen as invoking memories of geography lessons in order to subvert the decorum taught in the schoolroom; Legman finds that the exchange of limericks is almost exclusive to comparatively well-educated males, women figuring in limericks almost exclusively as "villains or victims". The most prized limericks incorporate a kind of twist, which may be revealed in the final line or lie in the way the rhymes are often intentionally tortured, or both. Many limericks show some form of internal rhyme, alliteration or assonance, or some element of word play.

Verses in limerick form are sometimes combined with a refrain to form a limerick song, a traditional humorous drinking song often with obscene verses.

Origin of the name

The origin of the name limerick for this type of poem is 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 name is generally taken to be a reference to the City or County of Limerick in Ireland sometimes particularly to the Maigue Poets, and may derive from an earlier form of nonsense verse parlour game that traditionally included a refrain that included "Will you come (up) to Limerick?" The phrase "come to Limerick" is known in American Slang since the Civil War, as documented in the Historical Dictionary of American Slang and subsequent posts on the American Dialect Society List. That phrase, as proposed by Stephen Goranson on ADS-list, refers to the Treaty of Limerick, and means surrender, settle, get to the point, get with the program, and the like. As of Feb. 3, 2010, the earliest known use of the name Limerick for this type poem is the following, reported by Stephen Goranson on the ADS-list and in comments at the Oxford Etymologist blogCite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).

Anti-limericks

There is a sub-genre of poems that take the twist and apply it to the limerick itself. These are sometimes called anti-limericks.

The following example, of unknown origin, subverts the structure of the true limerick by changing the number of syllables in the lines.

There was a young man from Japan

Whose limericks never would scan.

When asked why this was,

He replied "It's because

I always try to fit as many syllables into the last line as ever possibly I can."

Other anti-limericks follow the meter of a limerick but deliberately break the rhyme scheme, like the following example, attributed to W.S. Gilbert, in a parody of a limerick by Lear.

There was an old man of St. Bees,

Who was stung in the arm by a wasp;

When they asked, "Does it hurt?"

He replied, "No, it doesn't,

But I thought all the while 't was a Hornet."

See also

• Chastushka (Russian form with similar traits)
• Clerihew
• Double dactyl
• Dixon Lanier Merritt's famous limerick about pelicans
• There once was a man from Nantucket, a popular limerick subject

Notes

1. http://www.irishfreckles.com/whtm/display_full.whtm?advisory_id=36
2. An interesting and highly esoteric verse in limerick form is found in the diary of the Rev. John Thomlinson (1692–1761): 1717. Sept. 17th. One Dr. Bainbridge went from Cambridge to Oxon to be astronomy professor, and reading a lecture happened to say de Polis et Axis, instead of Axibus. Upon which one said, Dr. Bainbridge was sent from Cambridge,—to read lectures de Polis et Axis; but lett them that brought him hither, return him thither, and teach him his rules of syntaxis. From "Six North Country Diaries", The Publications of the Surtees Society, Vol. CXVIII for the year MCMX, p. 78. Andrews & Co., Durham etc. 1910.
3. Legman 1988, pp. x-xi.
4. Legman 1988, p. xliv.
5. Loomis 1963, pp. 153–157.
6. Wells 1903, pp. xix-xxxiii.

References

• Baring-Gould, William Stuart and Ceil Baring-Gould (1988). The Annotated Mother Goose, Random House.
• Legman, Gershon (1964). The Horn Book, University Press.
• Legman, Gershon (1988). The Limerick, Random House.
• Loomis, C. Grant (1963). Western Folklore, Vol. 22, No. 3 (July, 1963).
• Wells, Carolyn (1903). A Nonsense Anthology, Charles Scribner's Sons.

External links

• David Morin's physics limericks, from his mechanics textbook used for the advanced introductory Harvard physics course, Physics 16
• Edward Lear's A Book of Nonsense from Project Gutenberg
• OEDILF – A limerick dictionary

Limerick bibliographies:

• Deex, Arthur. Arthur Deex's comprehensive annotated Limerick Bibliography
• Dilcher, Karl The Karl Dilcher bibliography of limerick books.

• Poetic form
• Word play
• Humorous poems