2 favorites     7 comments    2 395 visits

See also...

Vintage Illustration Vintage Illustration


lines and curves lines and curves


Art is Art Art is Art


See more...

Keywords

waistcoat
Edward Lear


Authorizations, license

Visible by: Everyone
Free use

2 395 visits


He stood on his head till his waistcoat turned red

He stood on his head till his waistcoat turned red
There was an old man of Port Grigor,
Whose actions were noted for vigour;
He stood on his head till his waistcoat turned red,
That eclectic old man of Port Grigor.

Edward Lear, 1872

(In Lear's original illustration, the waistcoat was white. The printing was B&W only. I added the red color and vectorized the illustration before enlarging it.)

, Elbertinum have particularly liked this photo


Latest comments - All (7)
 Götz Kluge
Götz Kluge club
The Dalenberg Library of Antique Popular Literature (dalenberglibrary.com/blog/2014/4/1/a-sense-for-nonsense-from-edward-lear-to-lewis-carroll-to-dr-seuss#comments-533b6276e4b04f19c3e4ae18, 2014-10-14)
"[...] Lewis Carroll (the pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, 1832-1898) improved on the nonsense poetry model that Lear established in poems like “The Jumblies.” Carroll’s work incorporates mathematical puzzles, political allegory, and mysterious in-jokes into a more fully realized fantasy landscape. Lewis Carroll’s “portmanteau words” are a lot like some of Lear’s nonsense words (e.g. “runcible spoon”), only with a more complex etymology. [...]"
9 years ago. Edited 9 years ago.
 Götz Kluge
Götz Kluge club
Lear's Limerick (see speedysnail.com/limericks/metre.html) has an AABBA rhyme scheme:

There was an old man of Port Grigor,
Whose actions were noted for vigour;
He stood on his head
till his waistcoat turned red,

That eclectic old man of Port Grigor.


In "The Bankers Fate", Carroll's rhyme scheme is ABAB ABAB ABAB ABAB AABCCB ABAB AABCCB.
The meter of the last AABCCB verse is six-line anapaestic |··°··°|··°··°|··°··°··°| ··°··°|··°··°|·°··°··°|:

He was black in the face,
and they scarcely could trace
The least likeness to what he had been:
While so great was his fright
that his waistcoat turned white -

A wonderful thing to be seen!


In the lines which I rendered in italics, Carroll uses the "logic" which Lear used in the last lines of his limerick as well.
9 years ago. Edited 9 years ago.
 Elbertinum
Elbertinum club
Wer steht nun wirklich auf dem Kopf - Der Mensch oder die Welt?
9 years ago.
 Götz Kluge
Götz Kluge club
Waistcoat Poetry
9 years ago.

Sign-in to write a comment.