Edward Lear - Edward Lear Biography - Poem Hunter Edward Lear - Edward Lear Biography - Poem Hunter Biography Biography of Edward Lear Edward Lear was an English artist, illustrator, author, and poet, renowned today primarily for his literary nonsense, in poetry and prose, and especially his limericks, a form that he popularised. Biography Lear was born into a middle-class family in the village of Holloway, the 21st child of Ann and Jeremiah Lear. He was raised by his eldest sister, also named Ann, 21 years his senior. Ann doted on Lear and continued to mother him until her death, when Lear was almost 50 years of age. Due to the family's failing financial fortune, at age four he and his sister had to leave the family home and set up house together. Lear suffered from health problems. From the age of six he suffered frequent grand mal epileptic seizures, and bronchitis, asthma, and in later life, partial blindness. Lear experienced his first seizure at a fair near Highgate with his father. The event scared and embarrassed him. Lear felt lifelong guilt and shame for his epileptic condition.

His adult diaries indicate that he always sensed the onset of a seizure in time to remove himself from public view. How Lear was able to anticipate them is not known, but many people with epilepsy report a ringing in their ears (tinnitus) or an aura before the onset of a seizure. In Lear's time epilepsy was believed to be associated with demonic possession, which contributed to his feelings of guilt and loneliness. When Lear was about seven he began to show signs of depression, possibly due to the constant instability of his childhood. He suffered from periods of severe depression which he referred to as "the Morbids." Lear travelled widely throughout his life and eventually settled in Sanremo, on his beloved Mediterranean coast, in the 1870s, at a villa he named "Villa Tennyson." The closest he came to marriage was two proposals, both to the same woman 46 years his junior, which were not accepted. For companions he relied instead on a circle of friends and correspondents, and especially, in later life, on his Albanian Suliot chef, Giorgis, a faithful friend and, as Lear complained, a thoroughly unsatisfactory chef.

Another trusted companion in Sanremo was his cat, Foss, who died in 1886 and was buried with some ceremony in a garden at Villa Tennyson. After a long decline in his health, Lear died at his villa in 1888, of the heart disease from which he had suffered since at least 1870. Lear's funeral was said to be a sad, lonely affair by the wife of Dr. Hassall, Lear's physician, not one of Lear's many lifelong friends being able to attend. Lear is buried in the Foce Cemetery in Sanremo. On his headstone are inscribed these lines about Mount Tomohrit (Albania) from Tennyson's To E.L. [Edward Lear], On His Travels in Greece: Tomohrit, Athos, all things fair. With such a pencil, such a pen. You shadow forth to distant men, I read and felt that I was there.

Edward Lear was known to introduce himself with his long name: "Mr Abebika kratoponoko Prizzikalo Kattefello Ablegorabalus Ableborinto phashyph" or "Chakonoton the Cozovex Dossi Fossi Sini Tomentilla Coronilla Polentilla Battledore & Shuttlecock Derry down Derry Dumps" which he based on Aldiborontiphoskyphorniostikos. The centenary of his death was marked in Britain with a set of Royal Mail stamps in 1988 and an exhibition at the Royal Academy. Lear's birthplace area is now badged with a plaque at Bowman's Mews, Islington in London and his bicentenary in 2012 celebrated with a range of events, exhibitions and lectures in venues across the world including an International Owl and Pussycat Day on his birthday.

Artist Lear was already drawing "for bread and cheese" by the time he was aged 16 and soon developed into a serious "ornithological draughtsman" employed by the Zoological Society and then from 1832-36 by the Earl of Derby, who had a private menagerie. His first publication, published when he was 19, was Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots in 1830. His paintings were well received and he was favourably compared with Audubon. Lear travelled for three years in Italy from 1837 and published two volumes of illustrations, Illustrated Excursions in Italy, the first of many such books. Lear briefly gave drawing lessons to Queen Victoria, who had been pleased by the Excursions and summoned him to court, leading to some awkward incidents when he failed to observe proper court protocol. Lear then returned to the Mediterranean, wishing to illustrate all points along the coast of that sea. Among other trips, he visited Greece and Egypt in 1848-49, and toured the length of India and Ceylon in 1873-75.

While travelling he produced large quantities of coloured wash drawings in a distinctive style, which he worked up back in his studio into oils and watercolours, as well as prints for his books. His landscape style often shows views with strong sunlight, with intense contrasts of colour. Throughout his life he continued to paint seriously. He had a lifelong ambition to illustrate Tennyson's poems; near the end of his life a volume with a small number of illustrations was published, but his vision for the work was never realized. Author In 1846 Lear published A Book of Nonsense, a volume of limericks that went through three editions and helped popularize the form. In 1865 The History of the Seven Families of the Lake Pipple-Popple was published, and in 1867 his most famous piece of nonsense, The Owl and the Pussycat, which he wrote for the children of his patron Edward Stanley, 13th Earl of Derby. Many other works followed.

Lear's nonsense books were quite popular during his lifetime, but a rumour circulated that "Edward Lear" was merely a pseudonym, and the books' true author was the man to whom Lear had dedicated the works, his patron the Earl of Derby. Supporters of this rumour offered as evidence the facts that both men were named Edward, and that "Lear" is an anagram of "Earl". Lear's Limericks Lear's nonsense works are distinguished by a facility of verbal invention and a poet's delight in the sounds of words, both real and imaginary. A stuffed rhinoceros becomes a "diaphanous doorscraper". A "blue Boss-Woss" plunges into "a perpendicular, spicular, orbicular, quadrangular, circular depth of soft mud". His heroes are Quangle-Wangles, Pobbles, and Jumblies.

His most famous piece of verbal invention, a "runcible spoon" occurs in the closing lines of The Owl and the Pussycat, and is now found in many English dictionaries: They dined on mince, and slices of quince Which they ate with a runcible spoon; And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, They danced by the light of the moon, The moon, The moon, They danced by the light of the moon. Though famous for his neologisms, Lear employed a number of other devices in his works in order to defy reader expectations. For example, "Cold Are The Crabs", adheres to the sonnet tradition until the dramatically foreshortened last line. Limericks are invariably typeset as four plus one lines today, but Lear's limericks were published in a variety of formats. It appears that Lear wrote them in manuscript in as many lines as there was room for beneath the picture. In the first three editions most are typeset as, respectively, two, five, and three lines.

The cover of one edition bears an entire limerick typeset in two lines: There was an Old Derry down Derry, who loved to see little folks merry; So he made them a book, and with laughter they shook at the fun of that Derry down Derry. In Lear's limericks the first and last lines usually end with the same word rather than rhyming. For the most part they are truly nonsensical and devoid of any punch line or point. They are completely free of the off-colour humour with which the verse form is now associated. A typical thematic element is the presence of a callous and critical "they". An example of a typical Lear limerick: There was an Old Man of Aôsta, Who possessed a large Cow, but he lost her; But they said, 'Don't you see, she has rushed up a tree? You invidious Old Man of Aôsta!' Lear's self-portrait in verse, How Pleasant to know Mr. Lear, closes with this stanza, a reference to his own mortality: He reads but he cannot speak Spanish, He cannot abide ginger-beer; Ere the days of his pilgrimage vanish, How pleasant to know Mr. Lear!

Five of Lear's limericks from the Book of Nonsense, in the 1946 Italian translation by Carlo Izzo, were set to music for choir a cappella by Goffredo Petrassi, in 1952. Edward Lear's Works: Illustrations of the Family of the Psittacidae, or Parrots (1832) Tortoises, Terrapins, and Turtles by J.E. Gray Views in Rome and its Environs (1841) Gleanings from the Menagerie at Knowsley Hall (1846) Illustrated Excursions in Italy (1846) Book of Nonsense (1846) Journal of a Landscape Painter in Greece and Albania (1851) Journal of a Landscape Painter in Southern Calabria (1852) Book of Nonsense and More Nonsense (1862) Views in the Seven Ionian Isles (1863) Journal of a Landscape Painter in Corsica (1870) Nonsense Songs and Stories (1871) More Nonsense Songs, Pictures, etc.

(1872) Laughable Lyrics (1877) Biography - The Edward Lear Society Biography Biography Brief Biography The British poet and painter known for his absurd wit, Edward Lear was born on May 12, 1812 and began his career as an artist at age 15. His father, a stockbroker of Danish origins, was sent to debtor’s prison when Lear was thirteen and the young Lear was forced to earn a living. Lear quickly gained recognition for his work and in 1832 was hired by the London Zoological Society to execute illustrations of birds. In the same year, the Earl of Derby invited Lear to reside at his estate; Lear ended up staying on until 1836. His first book of poems, A Book of Nonsense (1846) was composed for the grandchildren of the Derby household. Around 1836 Lear decided to devote himself exclusively to landscape painting (although he continued to compose light verse). Between 1837 and 1847 Lear traveled extensively throughout Europe and Asia. After his return to England, Lear’s travel journals were published in several volumes as The Illustrated Travels of a Landscape Painter.

Popular and respected in his day, Lear’s travel books have largely been ignored in the twentieth century. Rather, Lear is remembered for his humorous poems, such as “The Owl and the Pussycat,” and as the creator of the form and meter of the modern limerick. Like his younger peer Lewis Carroll, Lear wrote many deeply fantastical poems about imaginary creatures, such as “The Dong with the Luminous Nose.” His books of humorous verse also include Nonsense Songs (1871) and Laughable Lyrics (1877). Lear died on January 29, 1888 at the age of 76. Although the subject and form of his works varies greatly, all of Lear’s poems can be characterized by his irreverent view of the world; Lear poked fun at everything, including himself in “By Way of a Preface.” Many critics view Lear’s devotion to the ridiculous as a method for dealing with or undermining the all-pervasive orderliness and industriousness of Victorian society.

Regardless of impetus, the humor of Lear’s poems has proved irrefutably timeless.￼ The Life of Edward Lear Edward Lear was an English artist, illustrator, author, and poet, renowned today primarily for his literary nonsense, in poetry and prose, and especially his limericks, a form that he popularised. Biography Lear was born into a middle-class family in the village of Holloway, the 21st child of Ann and Jeremiah Lear. He was raised by his eldest sister, also named Ann, 21 years his senior. Ann doted on Lear and continued to mother him until her death, when Lear was almost 50 years of age. Due to the family’s failing financial fortune, at age four he and his sister had to leave the family home and set up house together. Lear suffered from health problems. From the age of six he suffered frequent grand mal epileptic seizures, and bronchitis, asthma, and in later life, partial blindness. Lear experienced his first seizure at a fair near Highgate with his father. The event scared and embarrassed him. Lear felt lifelong guilt and shame for his epileptic condition.

His adult diaries indicate that he always sensed the onset of a seizure in time to remove himself from public view. How Lear was able to anticipate them is not known, but many people with epilepsy report a ringing in their ears (tinnitus) or an aura before the onset of a seizure. In Lear’s time epilepsy was believed to be associated with demonic possession, which contributed to his feelings of guilt and loneliness. When Lear was about seven he began to show signs of depression, possibly due to the constant instability of his childhood. He suffered from periods of severe depression which he referred to as “the Morbids.” Lear travelled widely throughout his life and eventually settled in Sanremo, on his beloved Mediterranean coast, in the 1870s, at a villa he named “Villa Tennyson.” The closest he came to marriage was two proposals, both to the same woman 46 years his junior, which were not accepted. For companions he relied instead on a circle of friends and correspondents, and especially, in later life, on his Albanian Suliot chef, Giorgis, a faithful friend and, as Lear complained, a thoroughly unsatisfactory chef.

Another trusted companion in Sanremo was his cat, Foss, who died in 1886 and was buried with some ceremony in a garden at Villa Tennyson. After a long decline in his health, Lear died at his villa in 1888, of the heart disease from which he had suffered since at least 1870. Lear’s funeral was said to be a sad, lonely affair by the wife of Dr. Hassall, Lear’s physician, not one of Lear’s many lifelong friends being able to attend. Lear is buried in the Foce Cemetery in Sanremo. On his headstone are inscribed these lines about Mount Tomohrit (Albania) from Tennyson’s To E.L. [Edward Lear], On His Travels in Greece: Tomohrit, Athos, all things fair. With such a pencil, such a pen. You shadow forth to distant men, I read and felt that I was there.

Edward Lear was known to introduce himself with his long name: “Mr Abebika kratoponoko Prizzikalo Kattefello Ablegorabalus Ableborinto phashyph” or “Chakonoton the Cozovex Dossi Fossi Sini Tomentilla Coronilla Polentilla Battledore & Shuttlecock Derry down Derry Dumps” which he based on Aldiborontiphoskyphorniostikos. The centenary of his death was marked in Britain with a set of Royal Mail stamps in 1988 and an exhibition at the Royal Academy. Lear’s birthplace area is now badged with a plaque at Bowman’s Mews, Islington in London and his bicentenary in 2012 celebrated with a range of events, exhibitions and lectures in venues across the world including an International Owl and Pussycat Day on his birthday.

Artist Lear was already drawing “for bread and cheese” by the time he was aged 16 and soon developed into a serious “ornithological draughtsman” employed by the Zoological Society and then from 1832-36 by the Earl of Derby, who had a private menagerie. His first publication, published when he was 19, was Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots in 1830. His paintings were well received and he was favourably compared with Audubon. Edward Lear, who showed an early interest in drawing the natural world, came to Knowsley through a fortuitous connection with the 13th Earl of Derby. In June 1830, Lear applied to the Zoological Society of London to request permission to draw from their collection of parrots, with a view to publishing his own book Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae. Lord Stanley, later 13th Earl of Derby, who as a young man had begun to collect natural history books and drawings, happened to chair the meeting where this application was approved.

Lord Stanley subsequently commissioned Lear to paint the birds and mammals from the aviary and menagerie which he had set up at Knowsley. During the years 1831–1837 that Lear was at Knowsley, his relationship with Edward Stanley became increasingly less formal. Over this period, in addition to drawing and painting, Lear entertained the children of the Stanley family. In fact, he dedicated his first collection of rhymes, published as A Book of Nonsense in 1846, to the 13th Earl’s great-grandchildren, grand-nephews, and grand-nieces. In 1837, Lear left Knowsley for Rome, a move which was fully supported by Edward Stanley, now 13th Earl of Derby, as part of his personal and artistic development. With a base in Rome, the artist travelled for the following eleven years through Italy, and it was during this period that he established himself as a landscape painter. However, Lear’s connection with the Stanley family was retained as he sent paintings back to the 13th Earl.

Also later, after the death of the 13th Earl, as Lear travelled through southern Europe and further afield, the 14th and 15th Earls of Derby continued to buy Lear’s work. Lear travelled for three years in Italy from 1837 and published two volumes of illustrations, Illustrated Excursions in Italy, the first of many such books. Lear briefly gave drawing lessons to Queen Victoria, who had been pleased by the Excursions and summoned him to court, leading to some awkward incidents when he failed to observe proper court protocol. Lear then returned to the Mediterranean, wishing to illustrate all points along the coast of that sea. Among other trips, he visited Greece and Egypt in 1848-49, and toured the length of India and Ceylon in 1873-75. While travelling he produced large quantities of coloured wash drawings in a distinctive style, which he worked up back in his studio into oils and watercolours, as well as prints for his books. His landscape style often shows views with strong sunlight, with intense contrasts of colour. Throughout his life he continued to paint seriously.

He had a lifelong ambition to illustrate Tennyson’s poems; near the end of his life a volume with a small number of illustrations was published, but his vision for the work was never realized. Author In 1846 Lear published A Book of Nonsense, a volume of limericks that went through three editions and helped popularize the form. In 1865 The History of the Seven Families of the Lake Pipple- Popple was published, and in 1867 his most famous piece of nonsense, The Owl and the Pussycat, which he wrote for the children of his patron Edward Stanley, 13th Earl of Derby. Many other works followed. Lear’s nonsense books were quite popular during his lifetime, but a rumour circulated that “Edward Lear” was merely a pseudonym, and the books’ true author was the man to whom Lear had dedicated the works, his patron the Earl of Derby. Supporters of this rumour offered as evidence the facts that both men were named Edward, and that “Lear” is an anagram of “Earl”.

Lear’s Limericks Lear’s nonsense works are distinguished by a facility of verbal invention and a poet’s delight in the sounds of words, both real and imaginary. A stuffed rhinoceros becomes a “diaphanous doorscraper”. A “blue Boss-Woss” plunges into “a perpendicular, spicular, orbicular, quadrangular, circular depth of soft mud”. His heroes are Quangle-Wangles, Pobbles, and Jumblies. His most famous piece of verbal invention, a “runcible spoon” occurs in the closing lines of The Owl and the Pussycat, and is now found in many English dictionaries: They dined on mince, and slices of quince Which they ate with a runcible spoon; And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, They danced by the light of the moon, The moon, The moon, They danced by the light of the moon. Though famous for his neologisms, Lear employed a number of other devices in his works in order to defy reader expectations. For example, “Cold Are The Crabs”, adheres to the sonnet tradition until the dramatically foreshortened last line.

Limericks are invariably typeset as four plus one lines today, but Lear’s limericks were published in a variety of formats. It appears that Lear wrote them in manuscript in as many lines as there was room for beneath the picture. In the first three editions most are typeset as, respectively, two, five, and three lines. The cover of one edition bears an entire limerick typeset in two lines: There was an Old Derry down Derry, who loved to see little folks merry; So he made them a book, and with laughter they shook at the fun of that Derry down Derry. In Lear’s limericks the first and last lines usually end with the same word rather than rhyming. For the most part they are truly nonsensical and devoid of any punch line or point. They are completely free of the off-colour humour with which the verse form is now associated. A typical thematic element is the presence of a callous and critical “they”. An example of a typical Lear limerick: There was an Old Man of Aôsta, Who possessed a large Cow, but he lost her; But they said, ‘Don’t you see, she has rushed up a tree?

You invidious Old Man of Aôsta’ Lear’s self-portrait in verse, How Pleasant to know Mr. Lear, closes with this stanza, a reference to his own mortality: He reads but he cannot speak Spanish, He cannot abide ginger-beer; Ere the days of his pilgrimage vanish, How pleasant to know Mr. Lear Five of Lear’s limericks from the Book of Nonsense, in the 1946 Italian translation by Carlo Izzo, were set to music for choir a cappella by Goffredo Petrassi, in 1952. Edward Lear’s Works: Illustrations of the Family of the Psittacidae, or Parrots (1832) Tortoises, Terrapins, and Turtles by J.E.

Gray Views in Rome and its Environs (1841) Gleanings from the Menagerie at Knowsley Hall (1846) Illustrated Excursions in Italy (1846) Book of Nonsense (1846) Journal of a Landscape Painter in Greece and Albania (1851) Journal of a Landscape Painter in Southern Calabria (1852) Book of Nonsense and More Nonsense (1862) Views in the Seven Ionian Isles (1863) Journal of a Landscape Painter in Corsica (1870) Nonsense Songs and Stories (1871) More Nonsense Songs, Pictures, etc. (1872) Laughable Lyrics (1877) Edward Lear - Artist Biography for Edward Lear Edward Lear (1812 - 1888) Edward Lear was active/lived in United Kingdom, Italy, England. Edward Lear is known for ornithology and travel book illustrations, landscape painting.

The Artist Biography Edward Lear Edward Lear (12 May 1812 - 29 January 1888) was an English artist, illustrator, author, and poet, renowned today primarily for his literary nonsense, in poetry and prose, and especially his limericks, a form that he popularized. Lear was born into a middle-class family in the village of Holloway, the 21st child of Ann and Jeremiah Lear. He was raised by his eldest sister, also named Ann, 21 years his senior. A nn doted on Lear and continued to mother him until her death, when Lear was almost 50 years of age. Due to the family's failing financial fortune, at age four he and his sister had to leave the family home and set up house together. Lear suffered from health problems. From the age of six he suffered frequent ... Displaying 750 of 8875 characters. Subscriber Members, please Sign In for artist biographies and for all services. Others, full text is available on Fridays.

If you are not currently a member, please See Details about membership, which includes biography access, auction records, and many other features available to our day, month, or yearly Subscriber Members! POET: Edward Lear - ALL POEMS OF Edward Lear Christine Pointer 26 Oct 2005 04:43 When I was in junior school I did not attend assemblies with the other children because of my religion. During the time that the others were singing hymns I was allowed to read my teachers precious copy of Edward Lear poems. This introduced me to the wonderful world of poetry and verse and of course reading. I found Mr. Lear's poems funny and endearing and full of visual delight. Edward Lear Edward Lear Children’s literature, literary nonsense Edward Lear (12 or 13 May 1812 [1] [2] – 29 January 1888) was an English artist, illustrator, musician, author and poet, and is known now mostly for his literary nonsense in poetry and prose and especially his limericks , a form he popularised.

His principal areas of work as an artist were threefold: as a draughtsman employed to illustrate birds and animals; making coloured drawings during his journeys, which he reworked later, sometimes as plates for his travel books; as a (minor) illustrator of Alfred Tennyson’s poems. As an author, he is known principally for his popular nonsense collections of poems, songs, short stories, botanical drawings, recipes, and alphabets. He also composed and published twelve musical settings of Tennyson’s poetry. Contents Lear by Wilhelm Marstrand Lear was born into a middle-class family at Holloway , North London, the penultimate of twenty-one children (and youngest to survive) of Ann Clark Skerrett and Jeremiah Lear. [3] He was raised by his eldest sister, also named Ann, 21 years his senior. Owing to the family’s limited finances, Lear and his sister were required to leave the family home and live together when he was aged four. Ann doted on Edward and continued to act as a mother for him until her death, when he was almost 50 years of age. [4] Lear suffered from lifelong health afflictions.

From the age of six he suffered frequent grand mal epileptic seizures , and bronchitis , asthma , and during later life, partial blindness. Lear experienced his first seizure at a fair near Highgate with his father. The event scared and embarrassed him. Lear felt lifelong guilt and shame for his epileptic condition. His adult diaries indicate that he always sensed the onset of a seizure in time to remove himself from public view. When Lear was about seven years old he began to show signs of depression, possibly due to the instability of his childhood. He suffered from periods of severe melancholia which he referred to as “the Morbids.” [5] Artist Masada on the Dead Sea , Edward Lear, 1858 Lear was already drawing “for bread and cheese” by the time he was aged 16 and soon developed into a serious “ornithological draughtsman” employed by the Zoological Society and then from 1832 to 1836 by the Earl of Derby , who kept a private menagerie at his estate, Knowsley Hall . He was the first major bird artist to draw birds from real live birds, instead of skins.

Lear’s first publication, published when he was 19 years old, was Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots in 1830. [6] One of the greatest ornithological artists of his era, he also contributed to John Gould ‘s works and was compared favourably with the naturalist John James Audubon . Unfortunately his eyesight deteriorated too much to work with such precision on the fine drawings and etchings of plates used in lithography, thus he turned to landscape painting and travel. [7] Among other travels, he visited Greece and Egypt during 1848–49, and toured India and Ceylon during 1873–75. While travelling he produced large quantities of coloured wash drawings in a distinctive style, which he converted later in his studio into oil and watercolour paintings, as well as prints for his books. [8] His landscape style often shows views with strong sunlight, with intense contrasts of colour. Between 1878 and 1883 Lear spent his summers on Monte Generoso , a mountain on the border between the Swiss canton of Ticino and the Italian region of Lombardy .

His oil painting The Plains of Lombardy from Monte Generoso is in the Ashmolean Museum in the English city of Oxford . [9] [10] Throughout his life he continued to paint seriously. He had a lifelong ambition to illustrate Tennyson ‘s poems; near the end of his life a volume with a small number of illustrations was published. Illustrated Excursions in Italy (1842-46) Temple of Venus, Rome Painting of Celano In 1842 Lear began a journey into the Italian peninsula , travelling through the Lazio , Rome , Abruzzo , Molise , Apulia , Calabria , and Sicily . In personal notes, together with drawings, Lear gathered his impressions on the Italian way of life, folk traditions, and the beauty of the ancient monuments. Of particular interest in Lear was the Abruzzo , which he visited in 1843, through the Marsica (Celano, Avezzano, Alba Fucens , Trasacco) and the plateau of Cinque Miglia ( Castel di Sangro and Alfedena), by an old sheep track of the shepherds.

Lear drew a sketch of the medieval village of Albe with Mount Sirente, and described the medieval village of Celano, with the castle of Piccolomini dominating the vast plain of Lago Fucino, which was drained a few years later to promote agricultural development. At Castel di Sangro, Lear described the winter stillness of the mountains and the beautiful basilica. Composer and Musician Lear played the accordion, flute, and guitar, but primarily the piano. He composed music for many Romantic and Victorian poems, but was known mostly for his many musical settings of Tennyson’s poetry. He published four settings in 1853, five in 1859, and three in 1860. Lear’s were the only musical settings that Tennyson approved of.

Lear also composed music for many of his nonsense songs, including “The Owl and the Pussy-cat,” but only two of the scores have survived, the music for “The Courtship of the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bò” and “The Pelican Chorus.” While he never played professionally, he did perform his own nonsense songs and his settings of others’ poetry at countless social gatherings, sometimes adding his own lyrics (as with the song “The Nervous Family”), and sometimes replacing serious lyrics with nursery rhymes. [11] Relationships Lear’s most fervent and painful friendship involved Franklin Lushington. He met the young barrister in Malta in 1849 and then toured southern Greece with him. Lear developed an undoubtedly homosexual passion for him that Lushington did not reciprocate. Although they remained friends for almost forty years, until Lear’s death, the disparity of their feelings for one another constantly tormented Lear. Indeed, none of Lear’s attempts at male companionship were successful; the very intensity of Lear’s affections seemingly doomed the relationships. [12] The closest he came to marriage was two proposals, both to the same woman 46 years his junior, which were not accepted.

For companions he relied instead on friends and correspondents, and especially, during later life, on his Albanian Souliote chef, Giorgis, a faithful friend and, as Lear complained, a thoroughly unsatisfactory chef. [13] Another trusted companion in San Remo was his cat, Foss, who died in 1886 and was buried with some ceremony in a garden at Villa Tennyson. San Remo and death Lear travelled widely throughout his life and eventually settled in San Remo , on his beloved Mediterranean coast, in the 1870s, at a villa he named “Villa Tennyson.” Lear was known to introduce himself with a long pseudonym: “Mr Abebika kratoponoko Prizzikalo Kattefello Ablegorabalus Ableborinto phashyph” or “Chakonoton the Cozovex Dossi Fossi Sini Tomentilla Coronilla Polentilla Battledore & Shuttlecock Derry down Derry Dumps” which he based on Aldiborontiphoskyphorniostikos .

[14] Lear’s grave in San Remo After a long decline in his health, Lear died at his villa in 1888 of heart disease , from which he had suffered since at least 1870. Lear’s funeral was said to be a sad, lonely affair by the wife of Dr. Hassall, Lear’s physician, none of Lear’s many lifelong friends being able to attend. [15] Lear is buried in the Cemetery Foce in San Remo. On his headstone are inscribed these lines about Mount Tomohrit (in Albania) from Tennyson’s poem To E.L. [Edward Lear], On His Travels in Greece: all things fair. With such a pencil, such a pen. You shadow forth to distant men, I read and felt that I was there. [16] The centenary of his death was marked in Britain with a set of Royal Mail stamps in 1988 and an exhibition at the Royal Academy .

Lear’s birthplace area is now marked with a plaque at Bowman’s Mews, Islington, in London, and his bicentenary during 2012 was celebrated with a variety of events, exhibitions and lectures in venues across the world including an International Owl and Pussycat Day on his birth anniversary. [17] Author Edward Lear sketches dated 15 May 1864, from Paddy Leigh Fermor ‘s collection. Howatke, by Edward Lear, 1867 In 1846 Lear published A Book of Nonsense, a volume of limericks that went through three editions and helped popularize the form and the genre of literary nonsense . In 1871 he published Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany and Alphabets, which included his most famous nonsense song, The Owl and the Pussycat , which he wrote for the children of his patron Edward Stanley, 13th Earl of Derby . Many other works followed.

Lear’s nonsense books were quite popular during his lifetime, but a rumor developed that “Edward Lear” was merely a pseudonym, and the books’ true author was the man to whom Lear had dedicated the works, his patron the Earl of Derby. Promoters of this rumor offered as evidence the facts that both men were named Edward, and that “Lear” is an anagram of “Earl.” [18] The falls of the Kalama, Albania 1851 Lear’s nonsense works are distinguished by a facility of verbal invention and a poet’s delight in the sounds of words, both real and imaginary. A stuffed rhinoceros becomes a “diaphanous doorscraper.” A “blue Boss-Woss” plunges into “a perpendicular, spicular, orbicular, quadrangular, circular depth of soft mud.” His heroes are Quangle-Wangles, Pobbles, and Jumblies.

One of his most famous verbal inventions, the phrase “ runcible spoon,” occurs in the closing lines of The Owl and the Pussycat , and is now found in many English dictionaries: They dined on mince , and slices of quince Which they ate with a runcible spoon ; And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, They danced by the light of the moon, The moon, The moon, They danced by the light of the moon. Though famous for his neologisms , Lear used a number of other devices in his works in order to defy reader expectations . For example, “Cold Are the Crabs” [19] conforms to the sonnet tradition until its dramatically foreshortened last line. A Book of Nonsense (c. 1875 James Miller edition) by Edward Lear Limericks are invariably typeset as four plus one lines presently, but Lear’s limericks were published in a variety of formats. It appears that Lear wrote them in manuscript in as many lines as there was room for beneath the picture. For the first three editions most are typeset as, respectively, two, five, and three lines.

The cover of one edition [20] bears an entire limerick typeset in two lines: There was an Old Derry down Derry, who loved to see little folks merry; So he made them a book, and with laughter they shook at the fun of that Derry down Derry. In Lear’s limericks the first and last lines usually end with the same word rather than rhyming. For the most part they are truly nonsensical and devoid of any punch line or point. They are completely free of the bawdyness with which the verse form is now associated. A typical thematic element is the presence of a callous and critical “they.” An example of a typical Lear limerick: There was an Old Man of Aôsta , Who possessed a large Cow, but he lost her; But they said, ‘Don’t you see, she has rushed up a tree? You invidious Old Man of Aôsta!’ Lear’s self-description in verse, How Pleasant to know Mr. Lear, ends with this stanza , a reference to his own mortality: He reads but he cannot speak Spanish, He cannot abide ginger-beer; Ere the days of his pilgrimage vanish, How pleasant to know Mr.

Lear! Five of Lear’s limericks from the Book of Nonsense, in the 1946 Italian translation by Carlo Izzo, were set to music for choir a cappella by Goffredo Petrassi in 1952. Portrayals Edward Lear has been played in radio dramas by Andrew Sachs in The Need for Nonsense by Julia Blackburn ( BBC Radio 4 , 9 February 2009) [21] and by Derek Jacobi in By the Coast of Coromandel by Lavinia Murray ( BBC Radio 4 , 21 December 2011). Works Biography - Edward Lear Edward Lear Edward Lear (12 May 1812 – 29 January 1888) Edward Lear was an English artist, illustrator, author, and poet, renowned today primarily for his literary nonsense, in poetry and prose, and especially his limericks, a form that he popularised. Biography Lear was born into a middle-class family in the village of Holloway, the 21st child of Ann and Jeremiah Lear. He was raised by his eldest sister, also named Ann, 21 years his senior.

Ann doted on Lear and continued to mother him until her death, when Lear was almost 50 years of age. Due to the family's failing financial fortune, at age four he and his sister had to leave the family home and set up house together. Lear suffered from health problems. From the age of six he suffered frequent grand mal epileptic seizures, and bronchitis, asthma, and in later life, partial blindness. Lear experienced his first seizure at a fair near Highgate with his father. The event scared and embarrassed him. Lear felt lifelong guilt and shame for his epileptic condition. His adult diaries indicate that he always sensed the onset of a seizure in time to remove himself from public view. How Lear was able to anticipate them is not known, but many people with epilepsy report a ringing in their ears (tinnitus) or an aura before the onset of a seizure. In Lear's time epilepsy was believed to be associated with demonic possession, which contributed to his feelings of guilt and loneliness. When Lear was about seven he began to show signs of depression, possibly due to the constant instability of his childhood.

He suffered from periods of severe depression which he referred to as "the Morbids." Lear travelled widely throughout his life and eventually settled in Sanremo, on his beloved Mediterranean coast, in the 1870s, at a villa he named "Villa Tennyson." The closest he came to marriage was two proposals, both to the same woman 46 years his junior, which were not accepted. For companions he relied instead on a circle of friends and correspondents, and especially, in later life, on his Albanian Suliot chef, Giorgis, a faithful friend and, as Lear complained, a thoroughly unsatisfactory chef. Another trusted companion in Sanremo was his cat, Foss, who died in 1886 and was buried with some ceremony in a garden at Villa Tennyson. After a long decline in his health, Lear died at his villa in 1888, of the heart disease from which he had suffered since at least 1870. Lear's funeral was said to be a sad, lonely affair by the wife of Dr. Hassall, Lear's physician, not one of Lear's many lifelong friends being able to attend.

Lear is buried in the Foce Cemetery in Sanremo. On his headstone are inscribed these lines about Mount Tomohrit (Albania) from Tennyson's To E.L. [Edward Lear], On His Travels in Greece: Tomohrit, Athos, all things fair. With such a pencil, such a pen. You shadow forth to distant men, I read and felt that I was there. Edward Lear was known to introduce himself with his long name: "Mr Abebika kratoponoko Prizzikalo Kattefello Ablegorabalus Ableborinto phashyph" or "Chakonoton the Cozovex Dossi Fossi Sini Tomentilla Coronilla Polentilla Battledore & Shuttlecock Derry down Derry Dumps" which he based on Aldiborontiphoskyphorniostikos. The centenary of his death was marked in Britain with a set of Royal Mail stamps in 1988 and an exhibition at the Royal Academy.

Lear's birthplace area is now badged with a plaque at Bowman's Mews, Islington in London and his bicentenary in 2012 celebrated with a range of events, exhibitions and lectures in venues across the world including an International Owl and Pussycat Day on his birthday. Artist Lear was already drawing "for bread and cheese" by the time he was aged 16 and soon developed into a serious "ornithological draughtsman" employed by the Zoological Society and then from 1832-36 by the Earl of Derby, who had a private menagerie. His first publication, published when he was 19, was Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots in 1830. His paintings were well received and he was favourably compared with Audubon. Lear travelled for three years in Italy from 1837 and published two volumes of illustrations, Illustrated Excursions in Italy, the first of many such books. Lear briefly gave drawing lessons to Queen Victoria, who had been pleased by the Excursions and summoned him to court, leading to some awkward incidents when he failed to observe proper court protocol.

Lear then returned to the Mediterranean, wishing to illustrate all points along the coast of that sea. Among other trips, he visited Greece and Egypt in 1848-49, and toured the length of India and Ceylon in 1873-75. While travelling he produced large quantities of coloured wash drawings in a distinctive style, which he worked up back in his studio into oils and watercolours, as well as prints for his books. His landscape style often shows views with strong sunlight, with intense contrasts of colour. Throughout his life he continued to paint seriously. He had a lifelong ambition to illustrate Tennyson's poems; near the end of his life a volume with a small number of illustrations was published, but his vision for the work was never realized. Author In 1846 Lear published A Book of Nonsense, a volume of limericks that went through three editions and helped popularize the form.

In 1865 The History of the Seven Families of the Lake Pipple-Popple was published, and in 1867 his most famous piece of nonsense, The Owl and the Pussycat, which he wrote for the children of his patron Edward Stanley, 13th Earl of Derby. Many other works followed. Lear's nonsense books were quite popular during his lifetime, but a rumour circulated that "Edward Lear" was merely a pseudonym, and the books' true author was the man to whom Lear had dedicated the works, his patron the Earl of Derby. Supporters of this rumour offered as evidence the facts that both men were named Edward, and that "Lear" is an anagram of "Earl". Lear's Limericks Lear's nonsense works are distinguished by a facility of verbal invention and a poet's delight in the sounds of words, both real and imaginary. A stuffed rhinoceros becomes a "diaphanous doorscraper". A "blue Boss-Woss" plunges into "a perpendicular, spicular, orbicular, quadrangular, circular depth of soft mud". His heroes are Quangle-Wangles, Pobbles, and Jumblies.

His most famous piece of verbal invention, a "runcible spoon" occurs in the closing lines of The Owl and the Pussycat, and is now found in many English dictionaries: They dined on mince, and slices of quince Which they ate with a runcible spoon; And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, They danced by the light of the moon, The moon, The moon, They danced by the light of the moon. Though famous for his neologisms, Lear employed a number of other devices in his works in order to defy reader expectations. For example, "Cold Are The Crabs", adheres to the sonnet tradition until the dramatically foreshortened last line. Limericks are invariably typeset as four plus one lines today, but Lear's limericks were published in a variety of formats. It appears that Lear wrote them in manuscript in as many lines as there was room for beneath the picture. In the first three editions most are typeset as, respectively, two, five, and three lines.

The cover of one edition bears an entire limerick typeset in two lines: There was an Old Derry down Derry, who loved to see little folks merry; So he made them a book, and with laughter they shook at the fun of that Derry down Derry. In Lear's limericks the first and last lines usually end with the same word rather than rhyming. For the most part they are truly nonsensical and devoid of any punch line or point. They are completely free of the off-colour humour with which the verse form is now associated. A typical thematic element is the presence of a callous and critical "they". An example of a typical Lear limerick: There was an Old Man of Aôsta, Who possessed a large Cow, but he lost her; But they said, 'Don't you see, she has rushed up a tree? You invidious Old Man of Aôsta!' Lear's self-portrait in verse, How Pleasant to know Mr. Lear, closes with this stanza, a reference to his own mortality: He reads but he cannot speak Spanish, He cannot abide ginger-beer; Ere the days of his pilgrimage vanish, How pleasant to know Mr. Lear!

Five of Lear's limericks from the Book of Nonsense, in the 1946 Italian translation by Carlo Izzo, were set to music for choir a cappella by Goffredo Petrassi, in 1952. Works: Mount Timohorit, Albania (1848) Illustrations of the Family of the Psittacidae, or Parrots (1832) Tortoises, Terrapins, and Turtles by J.E. Gray Views in Rome and its Environs (1841) Gleanings from the Menagerie at Knowsley Hall (1846) Illustrated Excursions in Italy (1846) Book of Nonsense (1846) Journal of a Landscape Painter in Greece and Albania (1851) Journal of a Landscape Painter in Southern Calabria (1852) Book of Nonsense and More Nonsense (1862) Views in the Seven Ionian Isles (1863) Journal of a Landscape Painter in Corsica (1870) Nonsense Songs and Stories (1871) More Nonsense Songs, Pictures, etc.

(1872) Laughable Lyrics (1877) Nonsense Alphabets Nonsense Botany (1888) Tennyson's Poems, illustrated by Lear (1889) Facsimile of a Nonsense Alphabet (1849, but not published until 1926) The Scroobious Pip, unfinished at his death, but completed by Ogden Nash and illustrated by Nancy Ekholm Burkert (1968) The Quangle-Wangle's Hat (unknown) Alphabet Poem A was once an ant, Tiny, Busy, Speedy, Shiny In the groundy Little ant! A was once a little ant, Antsy Fantsy Mantsy Antsy, Fantsy anty, Little ant! B was once a little bat, Batsy, Watsy, Fatsy, Batsy, Bumpy smacky Little bat! C was once a little cat, Batty, Catty, Fatty, Jatty, Fatty batty, Little cat! C was once a little cow, Cowy, Bowy, Wowy, Howy, Powy cowy, Little cow!

D was once a little dog, Doggy, Woggy, Loggy, Doggy, Fasty-runner, Little doggy! E was once the whole wide earth, Earthy, Mearthy, Girthy, It gave birthy To this new earthy, This whole wide earth! G was once a little goat, Goaty, Woaty, Foaty, Goaty, Baa, baa oaty, Little goat! H was once a little hawk, Hawky, Lawky, Stawky, Hawky, Smawky hawky, Little hawk! I was once a little iguana, Igy, Wigy, Ligy, Igy, Silly willy, Little iguana! J was once a little juke box, Boxy, Koxy, Loxy, Boxy, Wide insidy, Little juke box! K was once a little kit, Kitty, Bitty, Itty, Witty, Icky kitty, Little kit! L was once little lion, Mindon, Gion, Bion, Sighon Gooey zion, Little lion!

M is an 'm' you see, Memmy, Temmy, Semmy, Shemmy, Now 'm' is a moose you see, But she doesn't want to be! O was once a little ox, Oxy, Woxy, Foxy, Noxy, Run run oxy, Little Ox! P was once a plump old lady, Plumpy, Pumpy, Tunky, Wunky, Plumpy pumpy, Little old lady! Q was once a little quail, Quaily, Scaly, Whaly, Quaily, Paly quaily, Little quail! S was once a little snake, Snakey, Bakey, Kakey, Sakey, In a jungel, Little snake! T was once a little turtle, Turtally, Urtally, Nurtally, Turtally, Murtally burtally, Little turtle! U was once a little unicorn, Unicorny, Tricorny, Minocorny, wer54w66sf32re2

Question: Which English artist and poet was known to introduce himself as ‘Mr Abebika Kratoponoko Prizzikalo Kattefello Ablegorabalus Anleborinto Phashyph’?
Answer: Edward Lear