Limericks

En este mes, dedicado a las greguerías, abordamos también los limericks, una forma peculiar de la tradición poética inglesa. En las líneas que siguen, nuestra compañera Olga Pérez Calvo, profesora de inglés del centro, nos enseña qué son y cómo podemos escribir también nosotros uno de ellos.

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Los limericks  son poemas ligeros de 5 versos con rima AABBA, propios de la tradición literaria anglosajona.  Suelen ser jocosos, obscenos o sin sentido.

Los versos uno, dos y cinco deben de tener de siete a diez sílabas y la misma rima. Los versos tres y  cuatro deben  tener de cinco a siete sílabas y rimar los dos.

Por tanto, el esquema de distribución de la rima es:

AABBA

 “There was an Old Man with a beard

Who said,’ It is just as I feared!

Two Owls and a Hen,

Four Larks and a Wren,

Have all built their nests in my beard!’”.

 Las sílabas de color han de decirse con mayor intensidad.

 

Historia de los limericks

Los limericks fueron inventados por unos soldados de la localidad irlandesa de Limericks en 1700. Durante las largas marchas, se turnaban  inventando poemas sobre gente peculiar de distintos lugares de Irlanda. Pronto se extendió a todo el país.

La primera colección de limericks trata de 1820. En 1830, Edward Lear hizo popular el Limerick cuando  publicó una colección de ellos en su libro Book of nonsense. Hoy en día gente de todas partes los disfruta  leyendo, escribiendo o representando.

Tradicionalmente, el nombre de una persona o de un lugar se presenta en la primera línea:

“There was a Young lady of Wilts,

Who walked up to Scotland on stilts;

When they said it is shocking

To show so much stocking,

She answered, ‘ Then what about kilts?”

“There once was a man from Nantucket

who kept all his cash in a bucket.

But his daughter, named Nan,

ran away with a man

and as for the bucket, Nantucket”.

  

Otro ejemplo parecido son algunas rimas infantiles (Nursery Rhymes).

”Hickory, dickory, dock,

The mouse ran up the clock.

The clock struck one,

The mouse ran down,

Hickory, dickory, dock.

Hickory dickory dock! 

The mouse ran up the clock! 

The clock struck two. 

A cat said, “Boo!” 

Hickory dickory dock…”

Los limericks pueden tratar cualquier tema: incluso la Teoría de la Relatividad o  las Matemáticas.

“There once was a young lady named Bright

whose speed was much faster than light.

She set out one day

in a relative way

and returned on the previous night”.

“A Dozen, a Gross, and a Score,

plus three times the square root of four,

divided by seven,

plus five times eleven,

equals nine squared and not a bit more”.

Cómo escribir limericks

1º En el primer verso se nombra al sujeto

            There was one a man on the run

2º El segundo verso define ese sujeto o las consecuencias de una acción pasada

            who lost his mind in the sun

3º Los siguientes versos explican la acción.

            He ran down the street

            no brains lead his feet

4º Resultado de la acción de manera jocosa y desenfadada.

            and never had so much fun.

5º Se puede acompañar con un dibujo que lo ilustre.

Había una vez un hombre de Navalmoral

que siempre llevaba un disfraz

pero una noche

le atropelló un coche

y se volvió súbitamente normal.

Había una vez un hombre en Navalmoral

que padecía un horrendo mal.

Un remedio buscó

y de la Bamba bebió

y así se convirtió en animal.

Limerick, a beautiful city on the west coast of Ireland, is world-famous because of the verses named after it

 

HOW TO WRITE LIMERICKS

Fun and easy.

Limericks are fun to create. They are humorous, often bawdy, full of folk wisdom, and delightfully entertaining. They are also easy to write. The subject matter is basic and often self-deprecating. With only three metrical feet on three lines, and two feet on the other two lines, carrying a beat is straightforward, fueling an uncomplicated rhyme scheme: aabba. Best of all, for spoken-word performers, limericks are as simple to think up and memorize as they are to write.

Natural and flashy.

The key to writing a limerick is to devise an opening line, and then let the verse tumble out – crazy though it may seem. The faster you roll with the verse, the more natural and flashy the limerick. That’s the goal.

Establish the subject.

The first line of limerick needs to establish the subject without giving the story’s intentions away:

There once was a man on the run

This line sets up a fast journey (he’s running, not walking). It also leads to a few quick questions: Why? Where to? Who is he? Questions like these should spring from the first line of a limerick, opening the floodgates to the poem.

When crafting this first line, don’t forget to fit your words into typical rhythm of the opener. Here’s that opening line one more time:

~	x	~	~	x	~	~	x
There	once	was	a	man	on	the	run

You’ll need an eight syllable line containing one iamb (an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable) and two anapests (two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed syllable). Now, contorting your language into these metrical feet can be frustrating, but think of it as a game. Open up your thesaurus and find the best word that’ll fit to match your rhythm. Otherwise, you risk losing the special sound normally associated with the limerick.

Set up the action.

The second line defines the subject, or the consequences of a past action the subject took. Again, it is important to give the reader (or listener) this information to set up the action of the poem. The relationship between the first and second lines is made even stronger by the rhyme scheme.

~	x	~	x	~	~	x
Who	lost	his	mind	in	the	sun

Here you have two iambs and an anapest. This second line’s anapest matches the ending anapest in the first line. Not only do these two pairs of rhyming anapests help keep a consistent rhythm, but the rhythm also helps the rhyme ring true.

Make the switch.

The next two lines explain the action taken by the subject, which are the guts of the limerick. You’re now switching from trimeter (three metrical feet) to dimeter (two metrical feet), so make your two beats per line count.

~	x	~	~	x
He	ran	down	the	street
~	x	~	~	x
No	brains	lead	his	feet

The close.

Next comes the punch line. You can use wordplay, a surprise twist or a tongue twister. If you follow Edward Lear’s model of nonsense verse, his term for a limerick, the last line can be anything you’d like. 

~	x ~	x	~	~	x
And	never	had	so	much	fun

Overall, the key to writing a limerick is to let your ideas fly through the poem while also bending and contorting the language into the prescribed rhythm and rhyme. This will make your surprising and humorous content slip right into the joyous sound of the limerick.