LEAR and NONSENSE (week of Nov 2)

Lear was interested in NONSENSE. He was a writer/artist of the Victorian Period.
Nonsense provided a healthy antidote for Victorian earnestness. Most of his poems and pictures, as seen included in this weeks readings, teasingly plays on words. For example: Fishia Marina, Piggiawiggia are based on nursery humor. One of Lear's most famous poem is The Owl and the Pussy Cat. In that poem is the image of a "Runcible spoon" which is a nonsense word Lear made up. From footnote, “it is a fork with three prongs, two of which are broad, the third curved and sharp-edged”. It comes from runcinate, meaning “an irregular, saw-toothed, with teeth curved toward the base” (OED).

For Lear's work, rational moralizing is replaced with nonsense. As shown in Lear's drawings he takes realistic objects and creates nonsense. The odd thing is, nonsense makes some sense because we understand the familar even though it is placed into a new and unordinary context. Lear's drawings are rather peculiar, however reason is still present as noted in the title of the image.