Limerick (poetry)

A limerick ('lɪmərɪk ) is a form of verse that appeared in England in the early years of the 18th century. In combination with a refrain, it forms a limerick song, a traditional humorous drinking song often with obscene verses. It is written in five-line, predominantly trimeter with a strict rhyme scheme of AABBA, in which the first, second and fifth line rhyme, while the third and fourth lines are shorter and share a different rhyme. It was popularized by Edward Lear in the 19th century, although he did not use the term. From a folkloric point of view, the form is essentially transgressive; violation of taboo is part of its function. According to Gershon Legman, who compiled the largest and most scholarly anthology, this folk form is always obscene and the exchange of limericks is almost exclusive to comparatively well-educated males. Women are figuring in limericks almost exclusively as "villains or victims". Legman dismissed the "clean" limerick as a "periodic fad and object of magazine contests, rarely rising above mediocrity". Its humour is not in the "punch line" ending but rather in the tension between meaning and its lack. The following example is a limerick of unknown origin: The limerick packs laughs anatomical Into 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 standard form of a limerick is a stanza of five lines, with the first, second and fifth rhyming with one another and having three feet of three syllables each; and the shorter third and fourth lines also rhyming with each other, but having only two feet of three syllables. The third and fourth lines are usually anapaestic, or one iamb followed by one anapaest. The first, second and fifth are usually either anapaests or amphibrachs. The first line traditionally introduces a person and a place, with the place appearing at the end of the first line and establishing the rhyme scheme for the second and fifth lines.