Edward Lear: the poetry of the absurd

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Edward Lear (1812 - 1888) was an English painter, musician and poet who continued the original English folk tradition of short "meaningless" poems.

Brief information from childhood and youth

The Lear family was big, one might even say huge. Edward Lear was the youngest. At the age of four, he was taken in by his sister Ann, who was twenty-one years older than him. Ann became his mother and lived with him until her death, when she was 50 years old. From adolescence, he had to earn a living. He first drew signs and announcements, then began to make illustrations for zoological books.

He drew countless different animals, especially he had a lot of all kinds of parrots. Lear developed into a very serious ornithological draftsman. The first publication of his watercolors with parrots came out when the artist was 19 years old.

At Knowsley Hall

The Earl of Derby kept a large menagerie on his estate. He cherished the ambitious thought of publishing a book about him. At 21, Edward Lear was invited to make drawings of animals, and there his talent was discovered, which turned out to be a holiday for all the children whosurrounded.

He drew pictures for them accompanied by funny impromptu poems.

Doctors' recommendations

Edward Lear spent four years on the count's estate, but his he alth was poor. He himself was a graceful and fragile man. He had weak lungs, bronchitis and asthma constantly bothered him, in addition, he suffered from epilepsy. He learned to anticipate her fits and always retired.

Besides, he had bouts of depression. All together, but especially the lungs, led the doctors to the idea that the winter of 1847-1848 would be his last if he did not leave England. This is how Edward Lear left his native country and moved to warm places, more precisely, to Italy.

Italy and other countries

In this warm country, he began to paint landscapes. Edward sold his drawings and watercolors to both individuals and publishing houses, because in those days there was great interest in distant lands, but there were no photographs yet. And there were illustrated travel books.

Despite all his illnesses, he turned out to be an avid traveler. The artist traveled all over the Mediterranean, all the islands of the Aegean, Greece, Italy, Palestine, was on Mount Athos, in Egypt. He even made it to India and Ceylon.

And from everywhere Lear brought a huge number of drawings and published books. In 1846, an illustrated journey through Italy was published in two volumes. He was then 34 years old. And in the same year his first book of nonsense came out. It is such a bibliographic rarity that it is not even in the Britishlibrary. She was, as they say, read out, so she was a success.

And in the same year, the English queen became interested in him. She asked Edward Lear to teach her how to draw. And he gave 12 lessons to the queen, who was still young: she had not been on the throne for ten years (she ascended the throne in 1837). Experts say her drawings have improved since Lear's classes.

He always kept the desire to draw. He even illustrated Tennyson's poems.

Limericks

What are they? How is an Edward Lear poem structured? He did not invent Limericks himself. It was an old English tradition. This is an old form that goes back to the songs of the 16th century. They not only sang, but they also danced in Shakespeare's time and later. They were sold in printed form at fairs and just on the street, often with notes. Limerick consists of five lines. Two long ones and two short ones, and the last one is long again. Its plot is as follows:

• Exposure. The old man from the city "N".
• Action. What did he crack, that old man.
• Consequences. What was said to him, what did he answer to it, or what was done to him.

"Prince from Nepal". The first two lines describe the departure of the prince on a steamer. The action is that he fell off the steamer. And the consequences and the conclusion are simple - what has fallen is gone. That was the embassy's response. Each limerick was accompanied by a graphic drawing by the author.

And here is the "Old Man on the Border", who deftly danced with a cat and drank tea from a hat. It's pointless to retell it. And the picture for it has become a classic, like all Lear's legacy.

What is the charm of limerick heroes?

A limerick hero can do stupid things and does it all the time, but he's bound by the rhyme and the rules of the game he's taken on. What drama is actually going on in these limericks?

There, in addition to the old man who does ridiculous things, there are also sensible sober people around who, as a rule, do not like what he does. They ostracize him, drive him out of their city, mock him and even just beat him up.

Aldous Huxley wrote very well about this: it is about them, about others, that we are talking about in the first place. In fact, there is nothing surprising about them, they are law-abiding, although narrow-minded. Naturally, they are amazed at what this old man is doing. People ask questions that may seem inappropriate. In essence, limericks are nothing more than episodes of the eternal struggle of a genius or an eccentric with relatives and others. This is what really happens in limericks.

This is a self-portrait of Lear with an unknown person who claims that no Lear exists.

Edward Lear shows him the lining of his hat with his name on it.

Edward Lear: creativity

Edward Lear wrote many limericks in his lifetime. His books also include songs and ballads. Here is an example of his ballad and limerick at the same time. It's called Table and Chair. Serve it like prose, but keeping the rhymes.

Old chairsaid to the table: “I'm tired of standing in the corner, I'm tired of locked up a dull life. It smells of summer outside the window, we will run away with you together: rustle along the boulevards, breathe in the fresh wind. The table answers the chair: “I, brother, would go with you, but I’m not a master of walking, I know how to stand.” “Nothing,” the chair exclaimed, “I would still take a chance, because it’s not for nothing that we were given legs, strong and slender.” That's such a miracle! Here's a surprise: the table and chair went down and hobbled in a row, uncertainly at first. And then faster, faster past the shops and churches galloped like horses, gallop and gallop. But beyond the river, beyond the bridge, they began to think what would happen next. It’s good to turn home, but where, the way is unknown! "Duck, duck, dear friend, a mouse in the grass and a black beetle, show us a straight path, guide us home." A duck with a mouse and a beetle led them straight to the house, where dinner was waiting for them. They began to eat scrambled eggs, and on full stomachs, sing songs and pour jokes, dance until they drop, marry a duck.

This beauty needs no comments.

Lear's musicality

Edward Lear was a wonderful musician. He was loved, he made many friends everywhere. He sat down at the piano (by the way, no one taught him, Lear taught himself) and began to perform various songs, for example, to the verses of Alfred Tennyson, the most famous poet of that time. Moreover, Tennyson himself, a rather unsociable and gloomy man, admitted that of all the musical arrangements of his poems, he could only hear Lear's songs, everything else was no good.

At the end of his life, Lear settled in a villa in San Remo. He never married, having lived all his life as a bachelor. There EdwardHe died and was buried there, in San Remo. Edward Lear lived a life filled with work and travel. The biography in our presentation is over.