Yes, I agree, Alison, Mairead is brilliantly funny, in her poetry, and also on these
lists. When I heard her read in Cambridge, I kept laughing and have been
thinking about it ever since, I don't know exactly how to describe it, the poem
she ended with could have flown into the eye of god, there were others that
seemed to let everything out of its box, there were some that were like the only
child who sees the emperor has no clothes, and some that fell into such a naked
depth, and yet laughing, a great thing, I was wondering afterwards if I had ever
laughed in that way at a poetry reading, why not? why hadn't she read longer?
so anyway, anyone who's in NY should go and hear her.
And all of this about children's black humored literature is most interesting,
That Victorian book you mentioned, I wonder, if that's the one Stewart talks
about, Colonel D. Streamer's (can that be a real name?) "Ruthless Rhymes for
Heartless Homes"? which has stuff like:
Making toast at a fireside
Nurse fell in the grate and died;
And, what makes it ten times words
All the toast was burnt with nurse.
In the drinking well
(Which the plumber built her)
Aunt Eliza fell--
We must buy a filter
Which she talks about as examples of nonsense that purposefully "misses the
point" settting up a situation that will lead the audience to a certain
conclusion...and then to insert another conclusion, one that in everyday
discourse and its hierarchy of values would not be the 'relevant' one." And also
as playing with casuality.
best,
Rebecca
---- Original message ----
>Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2005 10:47:49 +1100
>From: Alison Croggon <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: Nonsense
>To: [log in to unmask]
>
>On 5/1/05 8:12 AM, "Liz Kirby" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> this definition of nonsense seems to take in pretty much
>> everything that isn't 'common sense' and so the argument kind of proves
>> itself. An argument that takes children's rhymes, carnival and the 'reign of
>> terror' as grist for its mill is a bit sweeping for my taste. All these
>> different kinds of 'nonsense' need untangling. There is surely a great
>> difference between the bloodthirsty behaviour of a mob, the excesses of
>> carnival and the puns and ritual of children's rhymes......?
>
>Hi Liz
>
>You're right that there need to be distinctions - I was originally thinking
>on from Carroll or Lear to the absurdities you might find in Ionesco or
>Beckett, incongruities or interruptions in the mundane which evaporate in
>laughter. Or Mairead Byrne's poetry, come to that: I think she's one of the
>funniest poets around. All the same, that laughter, however benign it might
>be, stems from a momentary anxiety, as expected meanings are disjoined; and
>it's seldom more than a step or two from the tragic.
>
>But children's rhymes have a long tradition of bloodthirstiness - Ruthless
>Rhymes for Nasty Children (?) is a Victorian book full of short rhymes like
>
>"There's been an accident!" they said.
>"Your servant's cut in half! He's dead!"
>"Indeed!" he said. "And would you please
>Send me the half that has my keys?"
>
>It's a tradition that's still going strong: Ben's dream book of the year has
>been The Bad Book by Andy Griffiths, which has been rather controversial -
>it was banned by a couple of primary schools, with attendant publicity and
>presumably a lift in sales. Certainly children love it. It's full of
>rhymes about bad mothers and fathers who let their children swim in shark
>infested waters with predictable results, bad children doing unspeakable
>things, scatological jokes and this sort of thing:
>
>Bad Little Betty
>Wouldn't get out of bed.
>Was she being lazy?
>No, she was dead.
>
>Ben thinks it's hilarious (and quite a lot of it is). It's black humour
>rather than pure nonsense, and the humour depends on the child knowing it's
>not "real". The poems deal with things a child might otherwise have
>nightmares about, death, disaster, authority figures, but here stripped of
>their awful dignity and turned into jokes. It's a distance from the gentle
>poignancy of Lear at his best, but also avoids his whimsy. A lot of the
>humour in the Harry Potter is, by the way, also cruel, but that's more like
>satire, which is slightly different (though Swift's A Modest Proposal might
>fit in here).
>
>In its own way, The Bad Book's not so far from the masks of carnival or Le
>Coq's Bouffon clown, which respects nothing, not even (or even especially)
>death, and the whole business of the Lord of Misrule; and the anarchy of the
>Terror might not be such a large step from that, either. Though I suspect
>that the Terror is rather the other side of the coin. And black humour is
>of course a way of dealing with the unspeakable: the conversation of
>forensic police, if you've ever had the opportunity to chat with them, can
>be full of incredibly brutal humour.
>
>I've seen that film, Dominic, I watched it by accident late one night. I
>agree it's a very terrible film, but its sheer nastiness gave me bad dreams
>all the same.
>
>All the best
>
>A
>
>
>Alison Croggon
>
>Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
>Editor, Masthead: http://masthead.net.au
>Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com
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