Nonsense verse is a form of light, often rhythmical verse, usually for children, depicting peculiar characters in amusing and fantastical situations. It is whimsical and humorous in tone and tends to employ fanciful phrases and meaningless made-up words. Nonsense verse is closely related to Amphigouri (Greek amphi- (q.v.) + gyros "circle," thus "circle on both sides," or from Gk. -agoria "speech"), which is a meaningless or nonsensical piece of writing, especially one intended as a parody.

Limericks

Limerick (poetry)

A limerick is a kind of a witty, humorous, or nonsense poem, especially one in five-line or meter with a strict rhyme scheme , which is sometimes obscene with humorous intent. The form can be found in England as of the early years of the 18th century...

 are probably the best known form of nonsense verse, although they tend nowadays to be used for bawdy or straightforwardly humorous, rather than nonsensical, effect.

Among writers in English noted for nonsense verse are Edward Lear

Edward Lear

Edward Lear was an English artist, illustrator, author, and poet, renowned today primarily for his literary nonsense, in poetry and prose, and especially his limericks, a form that he popularised.-Biography:...

, Lewis Carroll

Lewis Carroll

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...

, Ogden Nash

Ogden Nash

Frederic Ogden Nash was an American poet well known for his light verse. At the time of his death in 1971, the New York Times said his "droll verse with its unconventional rhymes made him the country's best-known producer of humorous poetry".-Early life:Nash was born in Rye, New York...

, Mervyn Peake

Mervyn Peake

Mervyn Laurence Peake was an English writer, artist, poet and illustrator. He is best known for what are usually referred to as the Gormenghast books. They are sometimes compared to the work of his older contemporary J. R. R...

, Colin West

Colin West

Coin West was an English footballer who played for numerous clubs, most notably Sunderland and Leyton Orient...

, Roald Dahl

Roald Dahl

Roald Dahl was a British novelist, short story writer, fighter pilot and screenwriter.Born in Wales to Norwegian parents, he served in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, in which he became a flying ace and intelligence agent, rising to the rank of Wing Commander...

, Dr. Seuss

Dr. Seuss

Theodor Seuss Geisel was an American writer, poet, and cartoonist most widely known for his children's books written under the pen names Dr. Seuss, Theo LeSieg and, in one case, Rosetta Stone....

 and Spike Milligan

Spike Milligan

Terence Alan Patrick Seán "Spike" Milligan Hon. KBE was a comedian, writer, musician, poet, playwright, soldier and actor. His early life was spent in India, where he was born, but the majority of his working life was spent in the United Kingdom. He became an Irish citizen in 1962 after the...

. The Martian Poets

Martian poetry

Martian poetry was a minor movement in British poetry in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Poets most closely associated with it are Craig Raine and Christopher Reid. The term Martianism has also been applied more widely to include fiction as well as to poetry. The word martianism is,...

 and Ivor Cutler

Ivor Cutler

Ivor Cutler was a Scottish poet, songwriter and humorist. He became known for his regular performances on BBC radio, and in particular his numerous sessions recorded for John Peel's influential radio programme, and later for Andy Kershaw's programme...

 are considered by some to be in the nonsense tradition.

Variants

In some cases, the humor of nonsense verse is based on the incompatibility of phrases which make grammatical sense but semantic nonsense at least in certain interpretations, as in the traditional:

'I see' said the blind man to his deaf and dumb daughter

as he picked up his hammer and saw.

Other nonsense verse makes use of nonsense word

Nonsense word

A nonsense word, unlike a sememe, may have no definition. If it can be pronounced according to a language's phonotactics, it is a logatome. Nonsense words are used in literature for poetic or humorous effect. Proper names of real or fictional entities are sometimes nonsense words.-See...

s—words without a clear meaning or any meaning at all. Lewis Carroll

Lewis Carroll

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...

 and Edward Lear

Edward Lear

Edward Lear was an English artist, illustrator, author, and poet, renowned today primarily for his literary nonsense, in poetry and prose, and especially his limericks, a form that he popularised.-Biography:...

 both made good use of this type of nonsense in some of their verse. These poems are well formed in terms of grammar and syntax, and each nonsense word is of a clear part of speech. The first verse of Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky

Jabberwocky

"Jabberwocky" is a nonsense verse poem written by Lewis Carroll in his 1872 novel Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, a sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland...

illustrates this nonsense technique, despite Humpty Dumpty

Humpty Dumpty

Humpty Dumpty is a character in an English language nursery rhyme, probably originally a riddle and one of the best known in the English-speaking world. He is typically portrayed as an egg and has appeared or been referred to in a large number of works of literature and popular culture...

's later explanation of some of the unclear words within it:

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

Other nonsense verse uses muddled or ambiguous grammar as well as invented words, as in John Lennon

John Lennon

John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...

's "The Faulty Bagnose":

The Mungle pilgriffs far awoy

Religeorge too thee worled.

Sam fells on the waysock-side

And somforbe on a gurled,

With all her faulty bagnose!

Here, awoy fills the place of "away" in the expression "far away", but also suggests the exclamation "ahoy", suitable to a voyage). Likewise, worled and gurled suggest "world" and "girl" but have the -ed form of a past-tense verb. "Somforbe" could possibly be a noun, possibly a slurred verb phrase. In the sense that it is a slurred verb, it could be the word "stumbled", as in Sam fell onto the drunk side and stumbled on a girl.

However not all nonsense verse relies on word play. Some simply illustrate nonsensical situations. For instance, Edward Lear's poem, The Jumblies has a comprehensible chorus:

Far and few, far and few,

Are the lands where the Jumblies live;

Their heads are green, and their hands are blue

And they went to sea in a sieve.

However, the significance of the color of their heads and hands is not apparent and the verse appears to be nonsense.

Likewise, a poem by Christopher Isherwood

Christopher Isherwood

Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood was an English-American novelist.-Early life and work:Born at Wyberslegh Hall, High Lane, Cheshire in North West England, Isherwood spent his childhood in various towns where his father, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the British Army, was stationed...

 from his Poems Past and Present (J.M. Dent and Sons (Canada) Ltd. fourth printing, 1959) makes grammatical and semantic sense and yet lies so earnestly and absurdly that it qualifies as complete nonsense:

The common cormorant or shag

Lays eggs inside a paper bag

The reason you will see no doubt

It is to keep the lightning out

But what these unobservant birds

Have never noticed is that herds

Of wandering bears may come with buns

And steal the bags to hold the crumbs.

More contemporary examples of nonsense verse are Vogon poetry, found in Douglas Adams

Douglas Adams

Douglas Noel Adams was an English writer and dramatist. He is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, a television...

's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a science fiction comedy series created by Douglas Adams. Originally a radio comedy broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1978, it was later adapted to other formats, and over several years it gradually became an international multi-media phenomenon...

or the 1972 song 'Prisencolinensinainciusol

Prisencolinensinainciusol

"Prisencolinensinainciusol" is a song composed by Adriano Celentano, and performed by Celentano and his wife, singer/actress-turned-record producer Claudia Mori. A very popular performance of the song, broadcasted by RAI, shows Celentano with showgirl Raffaella Carrà, who is dancing and...

' by Italian multi-talent Adriano Celentano

Adriano Celentano

Adriano Celentano is an Italian singer, songwriter, comedian, actor, film director and TV host.-Biography:Celentano was born in Milan at 14 Via Gluck, about which he later wrote the famous song "Il ragazzo della via Gluck"...

 .

Usage

There is a long tradition of nonsense verse in English. The Anglo-Saxon

Anglo-Saxons

Anglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...

 riddles are an early form. For instance:

A moth ate some words -- it seemed to me

strangely weird -- when I heard this wonder:

that it had devoured -- the song of a man.

A thief in the thickness of night -- gloriously mouthed

the source of knowledge -- but the thief was not

the least bit wiser -- for the words in his mouth.

The following poem makes even more extreme use of word incompatibility by pairing a number of polar opposites such as day/night, paralyzed/walking, dry/drowned, lie/true, in conjunction with lesser incompatibilities such as swords/shot and rubber/wall.

One bright day in the middle of the night,

Two dead men got up to fight.

Back-to-back they faced one another,

Drew their swords and shot each other.

One was blind and the other couldn't see,

So they chose a dummy for a referee.

A blind man went to see fair play,

A dumb man went to shout "hooray!"

A deaf policeman heard the noise,

And came and shot the two dead boys.

A paralyzed donkey walking by,

Kicked the copper in the eye,

Sent him through a nine inch wall,

Into a dry ditch and drowned them all.

Many nursery rhyme

Nursery rhyme

The term nursery rhyme is used for "traditional" poems for young children in Britain and many other countries, but usage only dates from the 19th century and in North America the older ‘Mother Goose Rhymes’ is still often used.-Lullabies:...

s are nonsense if the context and background are not known. Some claim that Mother Goose

Mother Goose

The familiar figure of Mother Goose is an imaginary author of a collection of fairy tales and nursery rhymes which are often published as Mother Goose Rhymes. As a character, she appears in one "nursery rhyme". A Christmas pantomime called Mother Goose is often performed in the United Kingdom...

 rhymes were originally written to parody the aristocracy while appearing to be nothing more than nonsense nursery rhymes. One example is:

Hey diddle, diddle,

The cat and the fiddle.

The cow jumped over the moon.

The little dog laughed to see such fun,

And the dish ran away with the spoon.

Other languages

Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n nonsense poets include Daniil Kharms

Daniil Kharms

Daniil Kharms was an early Soviet-era surrealist and absurdist poet, writer and dramatist. One of his pseudonyms, which was signed in Latin alphabet, was Daniel Charms.- Life :...

 and Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy

Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy

Count Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy, often referred to as A. K. Tolstoy , was a Russian poet, novelist and playwright, considered to be the most important nineteenth-century Russian historical dramatist...

, particularly his work under the pseudonym Kozma Prutkov

Kozma Prutkov

Kozma Petrovich Prutkov is a fictional author invented by Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy and his cousins, three Zhemchuzhnikov brothers, Alexei, Vladimir and Alexander, during the later part of the rule of Nicholas I of Russia....

, and some French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 exponents are Charles Cros

Charles Cros

Charles Cros was a French poet and inventor. He was born in Fabrezan, Aude, France, 35 km to the East of Carcassonne....

 and Robert Desnos

Robert Desnos

Robert Desnos , was a French surrealist poet who played a key role in the Surrealist movement of his day.- Biography :...

. The best-known Dutch Nonsense poet is Cees Buddingh'.

Among German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 nonsense writers, Christian Morgenstern

Christian Morgenstern

Christian Otto Josef Wolfgang Morgenstern was a German author and poet from Munich. Morgenstern married Margareta Gosebruch von Liechtenstern on March 7, 1910...

 and Ringelnatz are the most widely known, and are both still popular, while Robert Gernhardt

Robert Gernhardt

Robert Gernhardt was a German writer, painter, caricaturist and poet.-Life:Robert Gernhardt studied Painting and German in Stuttgart and Berlin. He was one of the regular contributors to the satirical magazine Pardon, where he did the section Welt im Spiegel together with F. K. Waechter and F. W...

 is a contemporary example. Morgenstern's Nasobēm

Rhinogradentia

The Rhinogradentia are a fictitious mammal order documented by the equally fictitious German naturalist Harald Stümpke...

is an imaginary being like the Jabberwock, although less frightful:

Original

Translation

Auf seinen Nasen schreitet einher das Nasobēm, von seinem Kind begleitet. Es steht noch nicht im Brehm Brehms Tierleben Brehms Tierleben is a reference book, first published in the 1860s,which made its author, Alfred Edmund Brehm ,known around the world.- Publishing history :... . Es steht noch nicht im Meyer Meyers Konversations-Lexikon Meyers Konversations-Lexikon or Meyers Lexikon was a major German encyclopedia that existed in various editions, and several titles, from 1839 until 1984, when it merged with the Brockhaus encyclopedia.... . Und auch im Brockhaus Brockhaus Enzyklopädie The Brockhaus Enzyklopädie is a German-language encyclopedia published by Brockhaus.The first edition originated in the Conversations-Lexikon mit vorzüglicher Rücksicht auf die gegenwärtigen Zeiten by Renatus Gotthelf Löbel and Christian Wilhelm Franke, published in Leipzig 1796-1808...  nicht. Es trat aus meiner Leyer zum ersten Mal ans Licht. Auf seinen Nasen schreitet seitdem, von seinem Kind begleitet, einher das Nasobēm.

Upon its noses strideth Forward the Noseybum, With it its child abideth. It's not yet found in Brehm. It's not yet found in Meyer. Nor in the Brockhaus he. It trotted from my lyre, As first it came to be. Upon its noses strideth since then, With it its child abideth, Forward the Noseybum.

The following observation by F.W. Bernstein has practically become a German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

proverb.

Die schärfsten Kritiker der Elche waren früher selber welche

The sharpest critics of the elks used to be ones themselves

External links

• Nonsense Books by Edward Lear.
• An Edward Lear website.