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Literary Nonsense
Literary nonsense (or nonsense literature) is a broad categorization of literature that balances elements that make sense with some that do not, with the effect of subverting language conventions or logical reasoning. Even though the most well-known form of literary nonsense is nonsense verse, the genre is present in many forms of literature. The effect of nonsense is often caused by an excess of meaning, rather than a lack of it. Its humor is derived from its nonsensical nature, rather than wit or the "joke" of a punch line. History Literary nonsense, as recognized since the nineteenth century, comes from a combination of two broad artistic sources. The first and older source is the oral folk tradition, including games, songs, dramas, and rhymes, such as the nursery rhyme " Hey Diddle Diddle". The literary figure Mother Goose represents common incarnations of this style of writing. The second, newer source of literary nonsense is in the intellectual absurdities of court ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jabberwocky Creatures
"Jabberwocky" is a Nonsense verse, nonsense poem written by Lewis Carroll about the killing of a creature named "the Jabberwock". It was included in his 1871 novel ''Through the Looking-Glass'', the sequel to ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865). The book tells of Alice's adventures within the Parallel universes in fiction, back-to-front world of the Looking-Glass world. In an early scene in which she first encounters the chess piece characters White King (Through the Looking-Glass), White King and White Queen (Through the Looking-Glass), White Queen, Alice finds a book written in a seemingly unintelligible language. Realising that she is travelling through an inverted world, she recognises that the verses on the pages are written in mirror writing. She holds a mirror to one of the poems and reads the reflected verse of "Jabberwocky". She finds the nonsense verse as puzzling as the odd land she has passed into, later revealed as a dreamscape. "Jabberwocky" is considered ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alice's Adventures In Wonderland
''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (also known as ''Alice in Wonderland'') is an 1865 English Children's literature, children's novel by Lewis Carroll, a mathematics university don, don at the University of Oxford. It details the story of a girl named Alice (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland), Alice who falls through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world of anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic creatures. It is seen as an example of the literary nonsense genre. The artist John Tenniel provided 42 wood-engraved illustrations for the book. It received positive reviews upon release and is now one of the best-known works of Victorian literature; its narrative, structure, characters and imagery have had a widespread influence on popular culture and literature, especially in the fantasy genre. It is credited as helping end an era of didacticism in children's literature, inaugurating an era in which writing for children aimed to "delight or entertain". The tale plays with logic, giving th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flann O'Brien
Brian O'Nolan (; 5 October 19111 April 1966), his pen name being Flann O'Brien, was an Civil Service of the Republic of Ireland, Irish civil service official, novelist, playwright and satirist, who is now considered a major figure in twentieth-century Irish literature. Born in Strabane, County Tyrone, he is regarded as a key figure in modernist and postmodern literature. His English language novels, such as ''At Swim-Two-Birds'' and ''The Third Policeman'', were written under the O'Brien pen name. His many satirical columns in ''The Irish Times'' and an Irish-language novel, ''An Béal Bocht'', were written under the name Myles na gCopaleen. O'Brien's novels have attracted a wide following both for their unconventional humour and as prominent examples of modernist metafiction. As a novelist, O'Brien was influenced by James Joyce. He was nonetheless sceptical of the "cult" of Joyce, saying "I declare to God if I hear that name Joyce one more time I will surely froth at the gob." ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Taylor (poet)
John Taylor (24 August 1578 – December 1653) was an English poet who dubbed himself "The Water Poet". Biography John Taylor was born in the parish of St. Ewen's, near South Gate, Gloucester on 24 August 1578. His parentage is unknown, as the parish registers did not survive the Civil War. He did, however, attend elementary school and grammar school there. His grammar school education may have taken place at the Crypt School in Gloucester, however Taylor never finished his formal education due to difficulties with his Latin studies. In the early 1590s, after his attempt at grammar school he moved from his home to south London, probably Southwark, to begin an apprenticeship as a waterman. His occupation was one deemed unpopular by the literary elite of London. Watermen were known to be drunkards, and often gossips and liars, who attempted to cheat patrons into a higher wage for their service. This occupation would be crafted into an image for Taylor later in his career. After h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Sandford (poet)
John Sandford or Sanford (c. 1565 – 1629) was an English clergyman and academic, known as a grammarian of the Romance languages. He was also a Neo-Latin poet, and a founder of the tradition of literary nonsense under the pseudonym ''Glareanus Vadianus'', a mocker of Thomas Coryat. Life Son of Richard Sandford, of Chard, Somerset, he was born there about 1565. He entered Balliol College, Oxford, as a commoner about 16 October 1581, and graduated B.A. from Balliol on 17 December 1586, M.A. on 27 May 1595. He was chosen in 1593 chaplain of Magdalen College, but more than once was censured for absenting himself from public worship. Sandford retained the office of chaplain at Magdalen until 1616; but before that date he commenced travelling as chaplain to Sir John Digby. About 1610 Sandford was in Brussels, and on 20 March 1611 they started for Spain, Digby's mission being the Spanish Match. In 1614 Sandford was at Lambeth Palace, acting as domestic chaplain to George Abbot, arc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mairzy Doats
"Mairzy Doats" is a novelty song written and composed in 1943 by Milton Drake, Al Hoffman, and Jerry Livingston. It contains lyrics that make no sense as written, but are near homophones of meaningful phrases. The song's title, for example, is a homophone of "Mares eat oats". The song was first played on radio station WOR, New York, by Al Trace and his Silly Symphonists. It made the pop charts several times, with a version by the Merry Macs reaching No. 1 in March 1944. The song was also a number-one sheet music seller, with sales of over 450,000 within the first three weeks of release. The Merry Macs recording was Decca Records' best-selling release in 1944. Twenty-three other performers followed up with their own recordings in a span of only two weeks that year. Meaning The song's refrain, as written on the sheet music, seems meaningless: :''Mairzy doats and dozy doats and liddle lamzy divey'' :''A kiddley divey too, wouldn't you?'' However, the lyrics of the bridge provide ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Riddles
A riddle is a :wikt:statement, statement, question, or phrase having a double or veiled meaning, put forth as a puzzle to be solved. Riddles are of two types: ''enigmas'', which are problems generally expressed in metaphorical or Allegory, allegorical language that require ingenuity and careful thinking for their solution, and ''conundra'', which are questions relying for their effects on punning in either the question or the answer. Archer Taylor says that "we can probably say that riddling is a universal art" and cites riddles from hundreds of different cultures including Finnish, Hungarian, American Indian, Chinese, Russian, Dutch, and Filipino sources amongst many others. Many riddles and riddle-themes are internationally widespread. In the assessment of Elli Köngäs-Maranda (originally writing about Malaita, Malaitian riddles, but with an insight that has been taken up more widely), whereas myths serve to encode and establish social norms, "riddles make a point of playing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rootabaga Stories
''Rootabaga Stories'' (1922) is a children's book of interrelated short stories by Carl Sandburg. The whimsical, sometimes melancholy stories, which often use nonsense language, were originally created for his own daughters. Sandburg had three daughters, Margaret, Janet and Helga, whom he nicknamed "Spink", "Skabootch" and "Swipes", and those nicknames occur in some of his Rootabaga stories. Development The "Rootabaga" stories were born of Sandburg's desire for "American fairy tales" to match American childhood. He felt that the European stories involving royalty and knights were inappropriate, and so set his stories in a fictionalized American Midwest called "the Rootabaga country" with fairy-tale concepts such as corn fairies mixed with farms, trains, sidewalks, and skyscrapers. A large number of the stories are told by the Potato Face Blind Man, an old minstrel of the Village of Liver-and-Onions who hangs out in front of the local post office. His impossibly acquired firsth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction that involves supernatural or Magic (supernatural), magical elements, often including Fictional universe, imaginary places and Legendary creature, creatures. The genre's roots lie in oral traditions, which later became fantasy literature, fantasy literature and drama. From the twentieth century onward, it has expanded into various media, including film, television, graphic novels, manga, animation, and video games. The expression ''fantastic literature'' is often used for this genre by Anglophone literary critics. An archaic spelling for the term is ''phantasy''. Fantasy is generally distinguished from the genres of science fiction and horror fiction, horror by an absence of scientific or macabre themes, although these can occur in fantasy. In popular culture, the fantasy genre predominantly features settings that reflect the actual Earth, but with some sense of otherness. Characteristics Many works of fantasy use magic (paranorma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Life And Opinions Of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
''The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman'', also known as ''Tristram Shandy'', is a humorous novel by Laurence Sterne. It was published in nine volumes, the first two appearing in 1759, and seven others following over the next seven years (vols. 3 and 4, 1761; vols. 5 and 6, 1762; vols. 7 and 8, 1765; vol. 9, 1767). It purports to be a biography of the eponymous character. Its style is marked by digression, double entendre, and graphic devices. The first edition was printed by Ann Ward (printer), Ann Ward on Coney Street, York. Sterne had read widely, which is reflected in ''Tristram Shandy''. Many of his similes, for instance, are reminiscent of the works of the metaphysical poets of the 17th century, and the novel as a whole, with its focus on the problems of language, has constant regard for John Locke's theories in ''An Essay Concerning Human Understanding''. Arthur Schopenhauer called ''Tristram Shandy'' one of "the four immortal romances".Arthur Schopenhauer, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laurence Sterne
Laurence Sterne (24 November 1713 – 18 March 1768) was an Anglo-Irish novelist and Anglican cleric. He is best known for his comic novels ''The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman'' (1759–1767) and ''A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy'' (1768). Sterne grew up in a military family, travelling mainly in Ireland but briefly in England. He attended Jesus College, Cambridge on a sizarship, gaining bachelor's and master's degrees, and was ordained as a priest in 1738. While Vicar of Sutton-on-the-Forest, Yorkshire, he married Elizabeth Lumley in 1741. He briefly wrote political propaganda for the Whigs, but abandoned politics in 1742. In 1759, he wrote an ecclesiastical satire '' A Political Romance'', which embarrassed the church and was burned. Having discovered his talent for comedy, at age 46 he dedicated himself to humour writing as a vocation. Also in 1759, he published the first volume of ''Tristram Shandy'', which was an enormous success and co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neologism
In linguistics, a neologism (; also known as a coinage) is any newly formed word, term, or phrase that has achieved popular or institutional recognition and is becoming accepted into mainstream language. Most definitively, a word can be considered a neologism once it is published in a dictionary. Neologisms are one facet of lexical innovation, i.e., the linguistic process of new terms and meanings entering a language's lexicon. The most precise studies into language change and word formation, in fact, identify the process of a "neological continuum": a '' nonce word'' is any single-use term that may or may not grow in popularity; a '' protologism'' is such a term used exclusively within a small group; a ''prelogism'' is such a term that is gaining usage but is still not mainstream; and a ''neologism'' has become accepted or recognized by social institutions. Neologisms are often driven by changes in culture and technology. Popular examples of neologisms can be found in science, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
