What's the deal with limericks?
When they teach you metric poetry, the vanilla form of a poem is envisioned as one metric line, over and over till it's done. A sonnet is like that - 14 lines in the same meter and length.
But lots of formal poetry is not like that. Including limericks. So why is that? Why does a limerick satisfy the ear? Now it's a standard form we're all familiar with, but why did the limerick get popular in the first place?
To me, the short 2 lines sound like a disrupting change, and the last long line sounds like a restoration of order.
A limerick starts off well-versed
Its pattern precisely rehearsed.
Then things turn hoppy
With lines short and choppy,
But line five's as long as the first.
1 comment:
Precisely compiled :)
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