The Notorious LImerick - A History - Part One

The limerick is simultaneously one of the best loved or most reviled poetic genres in both American and British literature. On one side of the fence, Carolyn Wells writes in her 1925 book, The Book of American Limericks, “A complete book of American limericks would be . . . not at all desirable. Aside from the fact that a large proportion of the known limericks are unfit for publication, a still greater majority are utterly worthless.

”To rebut this opinion, we refer to that most prolific or all writers, Anonymous, who wrote:

The limerick packs laughs astronomical
In a space that is quite economical.
But the good ones I’ve seen
So seldom are clean
And the clean ones so seldom are comical.

The origins of the limerick lie in the early British folk traditions. Both long and short folk tales were often set to rhyme to be sung or recited. The rhyming made memorization easier, for very little of this form of entertainment was ever written down. There were epic tales of battles and adventures to transport listeners far from their common existence, and ribald poems and songs to help their find humor in that same dreary business of staying alive.

Think about what is discussed at today’s fabled “water cooler” in our modern office environment. Tales of vacations, sports victories, adventures on the golf course, and of course, dirty jokes. Our ancestors were no different than us when looking for entertainment.Of course, much of both British and American folk literature has survived. But the material to be recorded for history was chosen by the educated (those who could read and write) and later by those with the printing presses. And these people were not at all interested in preserving the ribald and bawdy tales of the common folk.

So it came to be that when limericks enjoyed their first burst of popularity, they were presented as nursery rhymes for children.

To be continued.