A light, humorous style of fixed form poetry. Limericks range in subject matter from the silly to the obscene, and since Edward Lear popularized them in the nineteenth century, children and adults have enjoyed these comic poems. See also fixed form.
Limited omniscience See point of view.
Line A sequence of words printed as a separate entity on the page. In poetry, lines are usually measured by the number of feet they contain. The number of feet in a line, coupled with the name of the foot, describes the metrical qualities of that line. See also end-stopped line, enjambment, foot, meter. Literary ballad See ballad.