MÁSTER DE TRADUCCIÓN LITERARIA - UCM

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Lyrical texts

Handout 2

Author: Edward Lear (1812-1888)

https://www.edwardlearsociety.org/biography/

Edward Lear was born in Middlesex, England, in 1812, and produced a great legacy of work in
various fields of art. As a young man in his late teens, Lear was already earning a living with his
paintings and illustrations. And soon he became an expert draughtsman of ornithological and
botanical drawings. But today Edward Lear is best remembered for his children’s stories, and best of
all perhaps for The Book of Nonsense, a collection of humorous, family-friendly limericks
published in 1846.

Edward Lear popularized the limerick with his many contributions to the genre, but he was not the
inventor of this beloved form of poetry. Lear was a 19th-century poet, artist and musician, and the
author of numerous children’s stories and a volume of limericks entitled A Book of Nonsense. This
collection brought widespread attention to the humorous type of poem known as the limerick. But
these were not the first limericks ever written. https://kingoflimericks.com/edward-lear-and-the-
origin-of-limericks/

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A limerick is a short five-line poem with just one stanza. Limericks have an AABBA rhyme scheme
and a bouncy rhythm. The subject matter of a limerick is often whimsical and funny. From folk
songs to nursery rhymes, limericks have been entertaining audiences for almost two centuries.

Limericks all follow the same structure and pattern which sets them apart from other poetic forms
and makes them easily identifiable.

1. A limerick consists of five lines arranged in one stanza.

2. The first line, second line, and fifth lines end in rhyming words.

3. The third and fourth lines must rhyme.

5. The first, second, and final line each have three anapests1 — da dum da da dum da
da dum.

6. The third and fourth lines have two anapests — da dum da da dum.

A Book of Nonsense.

Example

There was an Old Man with a beard,

Who said, 'It is just as I feared!
Two Owls and a Hen,
Four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard!'2

1
An anapaest (/ˈænəpiːst, -pɛst/; also spelled anapæst or anapest) is a metrical foot used in formal poetry. In
classical quantitative meters it consists of two short syllables followed by a long one.
2
Había un viejo con barba / que dijo: “Lo sospechaba” / ¡Dos búhos y una golondrina, / cuatro alondras y una gallina
/ han hecho nido en mi barba! (Herrín Hidalgo, 2017)

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Poems 1 & 2

There was a Young Lady of Portugal,

Whose ideas were excessively nautical;
She climbed up a tree
To examine the sea,
But declared she would never leave Portugal.

Había una joven portuguesa

Con ideas un poco burguesas
Se subió a una rama
A ver el panorama
Y dijo «me gusta ser portuguesa»

There was a Young Lady of Hull,

Who was chased by a virulent bull;
But she seized on a spade,
And called out, “Who’s afraid?”
Which distracted the virulent bull

Había una joven de Libia

Que enfadó a un toro de lidia
Pero agarro una espada
Y dijo, «No estoy asustada»
Distrayendo al todo de lidia

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Poem 3

The Nonsense Alphabet

From the mid-1840s onwards, Edward Lear made illustrated nonsense alphabets (also
called “picture alphabets”) as gifts for children of his
acquaintance. https://www.themorgan.org/collection/edward-lear/illustrated-
nonsense-alphabet

B was a Lovely Bee,

It flew about a flower
And sang aloud “a buzz”, “a buzz”
For more tan half an hour.

Be era una bonita abeja

Que volaba entre la flora
Y cantaba su «zzum» «zzum»
Durante más de una hora