Edward Lear (1812 - 1888) is an English artist, musician and poet who continued the original English folk tradition of creating short “meaningless” poems.
Brief information from childhood and adolescence
The Lirov family was large, one might even say, huge. Edward Lear was the youngest. At four years old, his sister Anne, who was twenty-one years older than him, took him to her. Anne became his mother and lived with him until her death, when she was 50 years old. From adolescence he had to earn bread. At first he painted signs and announcements, then began to make illustrations for zoological books.
He painted countless different animals, especially he had all kinds of parrots. Lear has become a very serious ornithological draftsman. The first publication of his watercolors with parrots came out when the artist was 19 years old.
At Knowley Hall Estate
Earl of Derby was holding a large menagerie on his estate. He cherished the ambitious thought of publishing a book about him. At the age of 21, Edward Lear was invited to make drawings of animals, and his talent was revealed there, which turned out to be a holiday for all the children who surrounded him.
He painted pictures for them, which were accompanied by funny impromptu verses.
Doctors Recommendations
Edward Lear spent four years at the Earl's estate, but his health was poor. He himself was a graceful and fragile man. He had weak lungs, bronchitis and asthma constantly bothered him, in addition, he suffered from epilepsy. He learned to foresee her fits and always retreated.
In addition, he had bouts of depression. All taken together, but especially light, led the doctors to think that the winter of 1847-1848 would be the last for him if he did not leave England. That's how Edward Lear left his native country and moved to warmer places, more precisely, to Italy.
Italy and other countries
In this warm country, he began to paint landscapes. Edward sold his drawings and watercolors to individuals and publishers, because in those days there was great interest in distant countries, and there were no photographs. And there were illustrated travel books.
Despite all his illnesses, he turned out to be an avid traveler. The artist traveled all over the Mediterranean, all the islands of the Aegean Sea, Greece, Italy, Palestine, was on Mount Athos, in Egypt. He even reached India and Ceylon.
And from everywhere Lear brought a huge number of drawings and published books. In 1846, an illustrated journey through Italy was published in two volumes . He was then 34 years old. And in the same year his first book of nonsense was published. This is such a bibliographic rarity that it is not even in the British Library. She was read, as they say, so she enjoyed success.
And in the same year, the
Queen of England became interested in him
. She asked Edward Lear to teach her how to draw. And he gave 12 lessons to the queen, who was still young: she had not been on the throne for ten years (she ascended the throne in 1837). Experts say that after classes with Lear, her drawings improved.
He always had a desire to draw. He even illustrated Tennyson's poems.
Limerick
What are they? How is Edward Lear's poem built? Limeriki he did not invent. It was a long-standing English tradition. This is an old form that dates back to the songs of the 16th century. They not only sang, but they danced both in Shakespearean times and later. Hard copies were sold at fairs and just outside, often with notes. Limerick consists of five lines. Two long and two short, and the last long again. His plot is as follows:
- Exposition. An old man from the city "N".
- Act. What he broke off, this old man.
- Effects. What they told him, what he answered, or what they did to him.
"Prince of Nepal." The first two lines describe the departure of the prince on the ship. The action is that he fell from the ship. And the consequences and conclusion are simple - what has fallen is gone. That was the response of the embassy. Each limeric was accompanied by a graphic drawing of the author.
And here is the “Old Man on the Border”, who deftly danced with a cat and drank tea from his hat. Retelling it is pointless. And the picture for him has become a classic, like all of Lear’s legacy.
What is the charm of the heroes of limerick?
The Limerick hero can do stupid things and does it all the time, but he is connected by the rhyme and the rules of the game that he has taken upon himself. What drama is happening, in essence, in these limerics?
There, in addition to the old man who commits ridiculous acts, there are also sober, sober people who, as a rule, do not like what he does. They ostracize him, kick him out of their city, scoff at him and even simply pound him.
This was very well written by Aldous Huxley: it is about them, about others, that we are talking in the first place. In fact, there is nothing surprising in them, law-abiding, albeit not far-reaching. Naturally, they are amazed at what this old man is doing. People ask questions that may seem inappropriate. Essentially, the Limerics are nothing more than episodes of the eternal struggle of a genius or an eccentric with relatives and friends. This is what really happens in limerick.
Here is a self-portrait of Lear with the unknown, who claims that no Lear exists.
Edward Lear shows him the lining of his hat with a name.
Edward Lear: Creativity
Over the course of their lives, many Limerics were written by Edward Lear. His books also include songs and ballads. Here is an example of his ballad and limerick at the same time. It is called "Table and Chair." We serve it as prose, but preserving rhymes.
The old chair said to the table: “I’m tired of standing in the corner, tired of locked up a sad news in life. It smells of summer outside the window, we’ll run off together with you: rustle along the boulevards, breathe in the fresh wind. ” The table answers the chair: "I would, brother, go with you, but I’m not a walker, I know how to stand." “Nothing,” the chair exclaimed, “I would still take the risk, because it was not for nothing that we were given legs, strong and slender.” What a miracle! Here's a surprise: the table and chair went downstairs, and hobbled alongside, uncertainly at first. And then frisky, frisky past shops and churches galloped at full speed, like horses, lope and lope. But beyond the river, beyond the bridge, they began to think that later. It’s good to turn home, but where, the path is unknown! "Duck, duck, dear friend, a mouse in the grass and a black beetle, indicate the direct path, take us home." A duck with a mouse and a bug led them straight to the house where they were waiting for dinner. They began to eat scrambled eggs, and on full stomachs to sing songs and pour jokes, dopadu dance, marry a duck.
This charm does not need comments.
Musicality of Lear
Edward Lear was a great musician. He was loved, he made many friends everywhere. He sat down at the piano (by the way, no one taught him, Lear learned himself) and began to perform various songs, for example, to verses by Alfred Tennyson, the most famous poet of that time. Moreover, Tennyson himself, a rather obscene and gloomy man, admitted that of all the musical arrangements of his verses, he can only hear Lear’s songs, all the rest is not good.
At the end of his life, Lear settled in a villa in San Remo. He never married, having lived a single life. There, Edward passed away and was buried there, in San Remo. A life filled with work and travel, lived by Edward Lear. The biography in our presentation is over.