THE LIMERICK - G. LEGMAN

I can’t really believe I read 1700 limericks. I’m not sure where I got the idea to read this book in particular but I do remember being shocked at how large, ~500pgs, the book is. But, limericks read fast, it’s part of their charm. Apparently, this is largely due to the fact that they’re typically written in anapestic trimeter, a meter popular with Dr. Suess, and one that’s famously easy to read. So the poems themselves breezed by rather quickly, it doesn’t take that long to read 100 limericks. This alone, the sheer act of compiling this many limericks would be strange and amazing enough, but Legman goes a step further and wrote a 70pg intro essay and compiled the limericks by broad theme. Also, all the limericks in this book are dirty. In fact, Legman argues that limericks are by definition dirty, and that a non-X-rated limerick is a novelty at best. This is one of half a dozen interesting, somewhat harebrained theories and ideas that Legman packs into his essay. He focuses on the way that the limerick is a form of folk-culture but then refines this take to point out how, since the limerick is written and often stuffed with clever references, it is a middle-class and up form of folklore. He claims it is “the only folklore of the educated” which is a pretty interesting take. He identifies the drinking song as the working class, and more popular version of the limerick and goes through the many attempts to put limericks to music. None of these tunes caught on so we’re left with the limerick as a written and fancy form. Additionally, Legman claims that the limerick is the only “fixed poetic form native to english.” I don’t know if that’s true but it’s intriguing. Legman is a bit of a manic. All of this research, keep in mind he’s also released books on dirty jokes and drinking songs and erotic ephemera, he did on his own, he’s a self-taught and self-employed academic. He also is credited with inventing the vibrating dildo and coining the phrase, “make love not war” which is doubly strange when you take into account how many pot-shots he takes at hippies in this intro. Strange guy for sure. The limerick’s themselves, as you might imagine, vary in quality. Like I said, they’re organized by theme; the oral sex section is probably the best. Maybe one or 2 limericks would stand out each chapter and I’ve copied down and posted some of my favorites. The ones that are about the news are also interesting, historically. There’s a couple but the one about FDR getting an erection during Pearl Harbor and one about Haile Selassie and Mussolini. I suppose “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” also features news limericks, but they’re never dirty. 1700 men from Nantucket