-Nonsense Songs

Originally written for the children of his patron, the Earl of Derby, Lear’s poems helped popularize the genre of literary nonsense, characterized by fantastical topics, inventive rhymes, and accompanying humorous illustrations. Despite being written for children, Lear’s nonsense works expressed his own feelings of pessimism and melancholy. This is apparent in his story “The History of the Seven Families of the Lake Pipple-popple,” which describes how the children of seven animal families of the Gramblamble Land all die after being sent away by their parents, who ultimately pickled themselves and were put on display in a museum. Lear is best known for his poem “The Owl and the Pussy-cat,” that takes place in Bong-Tree Land and in which he coined the term “runcible,” an adjective used to describe different objects like the “runcible spoon.”