Edward Lear can be considered as one of the most versatile artists of the Victorian Age: he started his career as a natural illustrator (he worked with John Gould, the most famous Victorian ornithologist) and travel writer and, although he aspired all his life to make his name as a landscape painter, he became known as a nonsense poet, as the author of the popular A Book of Nonsense (1846). My paper aims to show Lear as a “brachylogical writer” and examine some of his Italian limericks in light of a brief discussion of the main features of nonsense as a genre and of its ‘parodic’ quality.

Parodic Brachylogy and Semantic Density in Edward Lear’s ‘Volcanic’ Italian Limericks

Antinucci Raffaella
2019-01-01

Abstract

Edward Lear can be considered as one of the most versatile artists of the Victorian Age: he started his career as a natural illustrator (he worked with John Gould, the most famous Victorian ornithologist) and travel writer and, although he aspired all his life to make his name as a landscape painter, he became known as a nonsense poet, as the author of the popular A Book of Nonsense (1846). My paper aims to show Lear as a “brachylogical writer” and examine some of his Italian limericks in light of a brief discussion of the main features of nonsense as a genre and of its ‘parodic’ quality.
File in questo prodotto:
Non ci sono file associati a questo prodotto.

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11367/78270
Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? ND
  • Scopus ND
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? ND
social impact