1
00:00:03,760 --> 00:00:05,600
'My name is Nicholas Parsons

2
00:00:05,600 --> 00:00:08,600
'and I've loved Edward Lear
since I was a child.

3
00:00:08,600 --> 00:00:11,160
'Nowadays, I do a whole show
devoted to him

4
00:00:11,160 --> 00:00:14,720
'and his wonderful, distinctive
nonsense verse.'

5
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Have you ever heard of someone
called Edward Lear?

6
00:00:17,680 --> 00:00:22,800
He wrote all these nonsense poems
and stories about 150 years ago.

7
00:00:22,800 --> 00:00:27,000
Nonsense Songs, Stories,
Botany And Alphabets

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00:00:27,000 --> 00:00:29,880
is the volume of poetry
that first introduced us

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00:00:29,880 --> 00:00:34,000
to the delightfully illustrated
Owl And The Pussycat.

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Lear is at the beginning of that
movement in children's literature,

11
00:00:38,040 --> 00:00:42,000
which is towards pleasure,
which is towards colour,

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00:00:42,000 --> 00:00:45,080
towards bigger illustrations.

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The Owl And The Pussycat

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is one of the most famous poems in
the English language

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and in 2014, it was voted
the nation's number one favourite.

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"The Owl And The Pussycat
went to sea

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"in a beautiful pea-green boat

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"They took some honey,
and plenty of money,

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00:01:03,880 --> 00:01:05,640
"wrapped up in a five pound note."

20
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He always has been highly
regarded as a poet's poet,

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admired by TS Eliot, or WH Auden.

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He touches poetry and culture and
comedy in lots and lots of places.

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'I want to explore what lies
behind the nation's favourite poem

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'and the connection
in which it appeared.'

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They are quite moving in many ways
and emotionally engaging

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00:01:27,920 --> 00:01:29,960
and very obvious in immediate ways.

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That's the thing I find,
find most appealing.

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"The owl looked up to the stars
above and he sang to a small guitar,

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"O, lovely pussy,
O, pussy, my love,

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"what a beautiful pussy you are,
you are.

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"What a beautiful pussy you are.

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Above all,
I want to understand the restless,

33
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complicated character that gave us
these poems

34
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and there's no better
place to start than here,

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in this beautiful, tattered old book.

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This is a first
edition of Edward Lear's

37
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famous Nonsense Songs, Stories,
Botany And Alphabets.

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"Phattifacia stupenda."

39
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I feel rather privileged to be
holding this, because to me,

40
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this is something very, very special.

41
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'Nonsense Songs was first
published in 1871,

42
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'an unusually eclectic

43
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'collection of poetry, stories,
recipes and drawings.'

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We've got the nonsense botany here.

45
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'The book even contains
a set of illustrated alphabets.'

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"A was once an apple pie,
pidy, pidy, widy, tidy...

47
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"Nice insidy apple pie!"

48
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NICHOLAS LAUGHS

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'Nonsense, as a genre, celebrates
the whimsical and nonsensical,

50
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'using songs and poetry
full of invented words

51
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'and impossible characters

52
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'and stories to parody the rules of
literature and life.'

53
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Ah, The Owl And The Pussycat.
NICHOLAS LAUGHS

54
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And the drawing at the top
of it is...gorgeous.

55
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'No poem better illustrates
the principles of nonsense

56
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'than The Owl And The Pussycat,

57
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'a poem celebrating the impossible
love between two animals

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'who are natural enemies.'

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"Pussy said to the owl,

60
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"You elegant fowl.

61
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"How charmingly sweet you sing.

62
00:03:40,800 --> 00:03:44,720
"O, let us be married
too long we have tarried,

63
00:03:44,720 --> 00:03:47,440
"but what shall we do for a ring?"

64
00:03:47,440 --> 00:03:50,560
"They sailed away
for a year and a day

65
00:03:50,560 --> 00:03:53,240
"to the land
where the Bong Tree grows

66
00:03:53,240 --> 00:03:56,440
"and there in a wood,
a Piggy-wig stood

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00:03:56,440 --> 00:03:58,680
"with a ring and the end
of his nose, his nose,

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"with a ring at the end
of his nose."

69
00:04:01,280 --> 00:04:03,760
We have a poem there
that is about marriage,

70
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it's become a popular poem to be
read at weddings,

71
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but it's also a,
sort of a poem about escape.

72
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It's full of impossibila

73
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this is an owl and a pussycat

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00:04:13,160 --> 00:04:17,640
two species that are somehow
incompatible, but who fall in love.

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"Dear Pig, are you willing to
sell for one shilling your ring?

76
00:04:21,800 --> 00:04:23,720
"Said the piggy, I will.

77
00:04:23,720 --> 00:04:27,320
"So they took it away
and were married next day

78
00:04:27,320 --> 00:04:29,720
"by the turkey who lives on the hill.

79
00:04:29,720 --> 00:04:32,600
"They dined on mince
and slices of quince,

80
00:04:32,600 --> 00:04:35,440
"which they ate with a
runcible spoon

81
00:04:35,440 --> 00:04:39,120
"and then hand in hand,
on the edge of the sand,

82
00:04:39,120 --> 00:04:42,160
"they danced by the light
of the moon,

83
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"the moon,

84
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"they danced...

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"by the light of the moon."

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APPLAUSE

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'In 2012, the celebrated children's
author, Julia Donaldson,

88
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'wrote a sequel to
The Owl And The Pussycat,

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'walking in Lear's poetic footsteps,

90
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'to recreate the ingredients
of the original poem.'

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She discovered that the key
to success

92
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was to imitate the poem's hypnotic
and rhythmic structure,

93
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one that Lear in turn imitated

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from the verse of the romantic
poets of the day.

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I had such fun doing it.
You know, I reread all the poems

96
00:05:19,800 --> 00:05:22,280
and I loved the metre of
The Owl And The Pussycat,

97
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so I stuck to that metre. Oh, yes.

98
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The same sort of sad loveliness
that you get in some,

99
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you know, slow movements of
classical music... Yes.

100
00:05:31,440 --> 00:05:33,720
..and there is certainly
a sort of melancholy lilt,

101
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but that's what I love about Lear.

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If you're going to take
on the challenge

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00:05:37,480 --> 00:05:40,920
of extending
some other writer's poem,

104
00:05:40,920 --> 00:05:43,200
a poem which is actually a classic,

105
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how do you get into the mind of that

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in order to be faithful to the...
original?

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It is a nonsense language,
it's the alliteration, assonance,

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the sound of the words,

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the nonsense words and the places,

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the sense of a quest, I think,
cos so many Lear poems are about...

111
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a rather mad,
crazy journey and the people,

112
00:06:07,640 --> 00:06:11,640
the landlubbers are saying,
don't, don't go, you're mad.

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00:06:11,640 --> 00:06:14,480
So, shall I just read a bit from...
Yes, please do. OK.

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00:06:14,480 --> 00:06:18,840
"The owl and the pussycat sailed
away in a beautiful blue balloon.

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00:06:18,840 --> 00:06:21,680
"They took some jam
and a honey roast ham,

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00:06:21,680 --> 00:06:24,120
"which they ate
with their runcible spoon.

117
00:06:24,120 --> 00:06:27,120
"They sought the ring
from autumn till spring

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00:06:27,120 --> 00:06:29,720
"till they came to the Chankly Bore

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00:06:29,720 --> 00:06:33,160
"and there stood the crow,
with his head hanging low,

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"shedding tears
on the silvery shore.

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"The shore, the shore,

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00:06:37,800 --> 00:06:40,760
"shedding tears
on the silvery shore."

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00:06:40,760 --> 00:06:43,800
"Alas and alack,
said that bird so black,

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"tis I who have caused
your woes.

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"I fear I have sold
your ring of gold,

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"to the Pobble who has no toes."
NICHOLAS LAUGHS

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So, the Pobble has the ring,

128
00:06:53,400 --> 00:06:56,520
but they feel sorry for him because
he's got no toes... I know...

129
00:06:56,520 --> 00:07:00,480
..he's fallen in love with the ring,
so they have to find something

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to swap for the ring
so they can get their ring back...

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Do you know, that's so clever.

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It's not only beautiful and
Lear-like, but to take on the,

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the style and mantle,

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it's pure Lear and you've done
it, it's wonderful.

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And I did, I wrote a happy romantic
ending to mime as well... Yes.

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In fact, he wrote his own sequel to
The Owl And The Pussycat,

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or he started writing one... Mm-hm.
..which was really sad,

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the pussycat falls out of a tree

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and the owl goes demented with grief

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and their children,
a half-owl and a half-pussycat,

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00:07:36,080 --> 00:07:38,040
which sounds a bit gruesome,

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so, my sequel comes before that
all happened. Mm.

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"Our mother died long years ago.

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"She was a lovely cat.

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"Her tail was five feet long and grey
with stripes, but what of that?

146
00:07:53,520 --> 00:07:58,200
"Our owly father long was
ill from sorrow and surprise,

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"but with the feathers of his tail,
he wiped his weeping eyes."

148
00:08:04,680 --> 00:08:08,520
'There's a fine line in all of
Lear's poetry, between joy

149
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'and melancholy,

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'perhaps because his own childhood

151
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'was marked with sadness
and difficulty.'

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00:08:14,960 --> 00:08:18,360
In 1817,
when Lear was only five years of age,

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his father was
thrown into a debtors' prison.

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Two of his sisters died of shock
and to save money,

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his mother gave him away.

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But worst of all, he had epilepsy.

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And at that time,
epilepsy was considered

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something which was akin to madness

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and people didn't talk
about it, in case you were put away.

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So, you can see,
often ill and lonely,

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rejected by his mother,

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Lear escaped into his own
fantasy world.

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Like many survivors
of childhood trauma,

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the adult Edward Lear found
his childhood hard to leave behind.

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00:09:02,520 --> 00:09:07,840
Writing nonsense was a perfect way
to stay playful and childish.

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While he was able to
enter into the mind of a child,

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I always think he also identified
with the child within the adult

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and brought that aspect of them out.

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One of the keys to nonsense is
that the absurdity that it exposes

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is the fact that we grow old,
but we don't grow up.

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We are still children.
I suppose it's the key insight,

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in a way,

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of Freudian psychoanalysis, which
also comes out of the 19th century.

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It's the notion that
actually we are still children.

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Is that why I love him so much?

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Because there's a child within
me that I can't escape from?

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00:09:42,400 --> 00:09:45,680
Well, I think our creative
selves are child selves. Hm.

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'By the time he was 15,

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'Edward was living
with his unmarried sister, Ann'

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and was looking for work.

181
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He found an outlet for his talents
in the newly-opened London Zoo,

182
00:10:04,080 --> 00:10:06,800
but it wasn't as a poet that he
would earn a living,

183
00:10:06,800 --> 00:10:12,440
it was as an artist, drawing exotic
birds here in the aviary.

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00:10:15,480 --> 00:10:19,360
It was here he developed
not only his skills as an artist,

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but his lifelong passion for nature.

186
00:10:22,480 --> 00:10:24,640
It can be no coincidence

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that his later poetry contains
very few human characters.

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00:10:30,480 --> 00:10:33,640
"H was a Heron,
who stood in a stream.

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00:10:33,640 --> 00:10:37,320
"The length of his neck
and his legs was extreme!

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00:10:37,320 --> 00:10:40,000
"H! Long-legged heron!"

191
00:10:48,800 --> 00:10:51,680
His drawings were a huge success.

192
00:10:51,680 --> 00:10:55,160
He published a book of them
when he was only 19,

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00:10:55,160 --> 00:10:57,920
which brought him instant
recognition.

194
00:10:57,920 --> 00:11:01,040
Before he was a poet, Edward Lear
was in fact an illustrator

195
00:11:01,040 --> 00:11:04,520
and his first illustrated book
was a book of parrots,

196
00:11:04,520 --> 00:11:08,960
with absolutely remarkably
accurate drawings of parrots.

197
00:11:08,960 --> 00:11:11,520
This was produced
as a very expensive work,

198
00:11:11,520 --> 00:11:14,560
with 42 plates,
produced in colour lithography.

199
00:11:14,560 --> 00:11:17,680
And David Attenborough,
for example, considers them to be

200
00:11:17,680 --> 00:11:22,960
one of the most accurate depictions
of birds in the early 19th century.

201
00:11:22,960 --> 00:11:28,480
So, a P for Polly has perhaps
a particular resonance,
I think, for Edward Lear.

202
00:11:30,240 --> 00:11:33,480
"P was a polly,
all red, blue and green.

203
00:11:33,480 --> 00:11:36,360
"The most beautiful polly
that ever was seen.

204
00:11:36,360 --> 00:11:38,680
"P! Poor little Polly!"

205
00:11:46,160 --> 00:11:50,400
It would be another 40 years
before Lear published Nonsense Songs,

206
00:11:50,400 --> 00:11:54,480
but while he was still enjoying
his first creative success
as an artist,

207
00:11:54,480 --> 00:11:58,360
he was introduced to Edward Stanley,
the 13th Earl of Derby.

208
00:11:58,360 --> 00:12:01,080
Stanley had a menagerie of his own

209
00:12:01,080 --> 00:12:03,800
at his country seat
at Knowsley near Liverpool

210
00:12:03,800 --> 00:12:07,160
and Lear was invited
to come and draw the animals.

211
00:12:07,160 --> 00:12:09,040
It was a huge honour,

212
00:12:09,040 --> 00:12:11,680
but one he accepted
with mixed feelings.

213
00:12:13,520 --> 00:12:17,560
So, you can imagine this young
lad from the background he had

214
00:12:17,560 --> 00:12:21,640
and the emotional troubles
which beset him,

215
00:12:21,640 --> 00:12:23,840
arriving in that long drive,

216
00:12:23,840 --> 00:12:26,240
walking all the way down here,

217
00:12:26,240 --> 00:12:28,080
and then coming up here

218
00:12:28,080 --> 00:12:30,880
and having to go up to that door
and meet the footman.

219
00:12:32,240 --> 00:12:33,240
Poor man.

220
00:12:44,120 --> 00:12:45,520
This is amazing,

221
00:12:45,520 --> 00:12:50,400
because you know from reading about
it that this is where it all
happened.

222
00:12:50,400 --> 00:12:52,400
The 13th Earl, who was a very...

223
00:12:52,400 --> 00:12:56,160
entertaining, gregarious character,
would have lots of people here,

224
00:12:56,160 --> 00:13:01,640
but think of young Edward Lear,
19, 20 years of age.

225
00:13:01,640 --> 00:13:05,280
It must have been quite
difficult for him to enter here

226
00:13:05,280 --> 00:13:09,960
and sit at the table with all these
well-connected people.

227
00:13:09,960 --> 00:13:13,640
But he was such a natural person,
he gave out spontaneously to people,

228
00:13:13,640 --> 00:13:19,320
he was, in no time at all, he
was accepted and admired and loved.

229
00:13:22,920 --> 00:13:27,120
Lear moved in some of the very
highest circles of Victorian England

230
00:13:27,120 --> 00:13:30,120
and there's a sense in which
he's aware of himself

231
00:13:30,120 --> 00:13:32,520
as a sort of court fool,
a court jester,

232
00:13:32,520 --> 00:13:36,960
who is welcomed to
that kind of a table,

233
00:13:36,960 --> 00:13:40,840
because he's known to be
entertaining and to be funny.

234
00:13:40,840 --> 00:13:43,880
And he's aware,
as the best court fools are,

235
00:13:43,880 --> 00:13:46,160
of the sort of...

236
00:13:46,160 --> 00:13:49,520
the in-built ridiculousness
and also potential melancholy

237
00:13:49,520 --> 00:13:52,960
of that situation,
being kind of in a lonely situation.

238
00:13:54,360 --> 00:13:58,800
Lear's poetry is filled with
the sense of an outsider looking in,

239
00:13:58,800 --> 00:14:02,360
with the best views
of society's foibles.

240
00:14:02,360 --> 00:14:03,840
In Spikky Sparrow,

241
00:14:03,840 --> 00:14:07,520
Lear satirises the pretensions
of a social climber.

242
00:14:07,520 --> 00:14:10,120
The sparrows think that if they buy
new clothes

243
00:14:10,120 --> 00:14:13,320
it will give them
an entree into the upper classes.

244
00:14:14,560 --> 00:14:16,400
"Then when so completely drest,

245
00:14:16,400 --> 00:14:18,840
"back they flew
and reached their nest.

246
00:14:18,840 --> 00:14:20,120
"Their children cried,

247
00:14:20,120 --> 00:14:23,920
"O, Ma and Pa!
How truly beautiful you are!

248
00:14:23,920 --> 00:14:25,040
"Said they,

249
00:14:25,040 --> 00:14:28,480
"We trust that cold or pain,
we shall never feel again!

250
00:14:28,480 --> 00:14:31,200
"While perched on tree,
or house, or steeple,

251
00:14:31,200 --> 00:14:34,080
"we now shall look
like other people."

252
00:14:34,080 --> 00:14:35,600
There's that sense of, you know,

253
00:14:35,600 --> 00:14:38,240
if only we're like other people,
we'll be happy,

254
00:14:38,240 --> 00:14:40,320
but of course it's completely
precarious,

255
00:14:40,320 --> 00:14:44,200
even as he's saying it, "perched
on tree, or house, or steeple."

256
00:14:44,200 --> 00:14:46,560
It's like Chekhov's gun, isn't it?

257
00:14:46,560 --> 00:14:49,920
If you're perched on a steeple,
you're going to fall off it.

258
00:14:51,720 --> 00:14:54,200
Whilst the aristocracy of Knowsley

259
00:14:54,200 --> 00:14:57,080
may have moulded him into a
budding satirist,

260
00:14:57,080 --> 00:15:00,520
this great house offered inspiration
in another way.

261
00:15:00,520 --> 00:15:03,720
It was here he first tried his hand
at poetry,

262
00:15:03,720 --> 00:15:05,960
but not for the adults.

263
00:15:08,080 --> 00:15:09,280
Oh.

264
00:15:09,280 --> 00:15:12,640
So, this...is the nursery.

265
00:15:12,640 --> 00:15:17,000
It's now apparently a music room,
but this is where it all began,

266
00:15:17,000 --> 00:15:20,120
where Edward Lear first started
writing his nonsense

267
00:15:20,120 --> 00:15:21,840
to entertain lots of children,

268
00:15:21,840 --> 00:15:23,880
because more than one family

269
00:15:23,880 --> 00:15:26,720
would be living in these stately
homes at that time.

270
00:15:26,720 --> 00:15:28,520
You can just imagine the atmosphere.

271
00:15:28,520 --> 00:15:29,960
He would walk in,

272
00:15:29,960 --> 00:15:32,560
he'd be greeted by lots
of excited voices,

273
00:15:32,560 --> 00:15:34,840
shouting out from the poems
they knew

274
00:15:34,840 --> 00:15:38,160
and asking for other ones,
looking at his drawings.

275
00:15:38,160 --> 00:15:39,680
It's...

276
00:15:39,680 --> 00:15:42,320
it's quite nostalgic, it's quite,

277
00:15:42,320 --> 00:15:47,400
almost eerie for me to be here,
because having loved Lear for years,

278
00:15:47,400 --> 00:15:50,720
to think that in this very room

279
00:15:50,720 --> 00:15:54,760
something that I've got to know about
so well and love so much,

280
00:15:54,760 --> 00:15:57,120
it all began here.

281
00:15:57,120 --> 00:15:58,840
The mid-19th century,

282
00:15:58,840 --> 00:16:03,040
as well as being a time of huge
industrial and scientific progress,

283
00:16:03,040 --> 00:16:06,840
was a time of astonishing
literary invention.

284
00:16:06,840 --> 00:16:11,760
Apparently from nowhere, there was
an explosion of literary nonsense,

285
00:16:11,760 --> 00:16:13,600
not just Lear's poetry,

286
00:16:13,600 --> 00:16:16,400
but also Lewis Carroll's novel,
Alice In Wonderland,

287
00:16:16,400 --> 00:16:19,400
appearing within
a few short years of each other.

288
00:16:19,400 --> 00:16:23,120
Do you think there's any coincidence
that this cult of nonsense,

289
00:16:23,120 --> 00:16:26,560
which appeared around about the same
time with both Alice In Wonderland

290
00:16:26,560 --> 00:16:29,920
and Edward Lear, do you think there
was something about that period,

291
00:16:29,920 --> 00:16:34,920
that time, that produces a wealth
of humorous, nonsensical verse?

292
00:16:34,920 --> 00:16:37,800
One aspect I suppose
is that the 19th century

293
00:16:37,800 --> 00:16:40,240
is an era of systematisation. Mm-hm.

294
00:16:40,240 --> 00:16:42,840
So, it's an era where
there is a lot of...

295
00:16:42,840 --> 00:16:45,040
taxonomy of plants and animals,

296
00:16:45,040 --> 00:16:47,720
which Lear spoofs
in his Nonsense Botany,

297
00:16:47,720 --> 00:16:50,720
it's the era of the railways,
of the creation of the police,

298
00:16:50,720 --> 00:16:54,400
of the creation of the universal
education system, so...

299
00:16:54,400 --> 00:16:56,280
in a way, you could see nonsense

300
00:16:56,280 --> 00:17:00,160
as a kind of reaction
against that curriculum. Mm-hm.

301
00:17:00,160 --> 00:17:02,680
Perhaps the biggest
influence on Lear,

302
00:17:02,680 --> 00:17:05,360
as he began to write his nonsense
verse at Knowsley,

303
00:17:05,360 --> 00:17:08,000
were the animals he was
spending his days drawing,

304
00:17:08,000 --> 00:17:10,760
that lived in the Earl of Derby's
menagerie.

305
00:17:10,760 --> 00:17:12,280
These were exotic creatures

306
00:17:12,280 --> 00:17:15,720
that most people in England
would never have seen before.

307
00:17:15,720 --> 00:17:19,600
My theory is a lot of the names
he came up with

308
00:17:19,600 --> 00:17:22,520
are directly related to the animals
that were here.

309
00:17:22,520 --> 00:17:25,320
The animals in particular,
not so much the birds.

310
00:17:25,320 --> 00:17:30,760
But a lot of the animals came to
Knowsley without scientific names.

311
00:17:30,760 --> 00:17:32,760
They hadn't even been described.

312
00:17:32,760 --> 00:17:35,600
So, they had their original names

313
00:17:35,600 --> 00:17:39,400
from the indigenous people
who lived in those countries.

314
00:17:39,400 --> 00:17:41,400
This, the whiskered yarke.

315
00:17:41,400 --> 00:17:43,080
The coquatoon.

316
00:17:43,080 --> 00:17:45,520
My particular favourite is
the jingey jonger,

317
00:17:45,520 --> 00:17:47,400
and then you've got all
the kangaroos,

318
00:17:47,400 --> 00:17:50,800
with strange aboriginal names,
like the woylie,

319
00:17:50,800 --> 00:17:53,720
the narbalek and the quokka.

320
00:17:53,720 --> 00:17:57,280
So, where did
Edward Lear get his names from?

321
00:17:57,280 --> 00:17:59,400
He got it from being round here

322
00:17:59,400 --> 00:18:01,720
and then the keeper saying things
like,

323
00:18:01,720 --> 00:18:05,120
oh, the quagga's got out
again, or, you know,

324
00:18:05,120 --> 00:18:08,880
the jingey jonger just trod on my
foot, or something like that.

325
00:18:08,880 --> 00:18:11,520
It's bound to have had
an effect on him.

326
00:18:15,120 --> 00:18:17,560
"Said the Duck to the Kangaroo,

327
00:18:17,560 --> 00:18:19,040
"Good gracious!

328
00:18:19,040 --> 00:18:20,360
"How you hop!

329
00:18:20,360 --> 00:18:23,000
"Over the fields
and the water too,

330
00:18:23,000 --> 00:18:24,760
"as if you never would stop!

331
00:18:26,280 --> 00:18:29,560
"My life is a bore
in this nasty pond

332
00:18:29,560 --> 00:18:32,720
"and I long to go
out in the world beyond.

333
00:18:32,720 --> 00:18:34,760
"I wish I could hop like you!

334
00:18:34,760 --> 00:18:36,520
"Said the Duck to the Kangaroo."

335
00:18:38,320 --> 00:18:39,720
Whilst Lear's nonsense

336
00:18:39,720 --> 00:18:42,920
is firmly linked to the Victorian
age of discovery,

337
00:18:42,920 --> 00:18:45,680
he didn't invent the genre entirely.

338
00:18:45,680 --> 00:18:48,640
The real roots of English
nonsense go far deeper.

339
00:18:49,720 --> 00:18:53,400
There's a tradition,
I think of nonsense nursery rhymes,

340
00:18:53,400 --> 00:18:57,720
nonsense songs, refrains in songs
of the "hey, nonny, nonny" variety

341
00:18:57,720 --> 00:19:01,240
and also a tradition, I think, of,
sort of...

342
00:19:01,240 --> 00:19:04,120
topsy-turvy-dom and fooling,

343
00:19:04,120 --> 00:19:07,280
which goes back through the fools
of the Elizabethan stage

344
00:19:07,280 --> 00:19:10,480
and goes back into the kinds of
carnivals of fools

345
00:19:10,480 --> 00:19:12,960
of the Middle Ages and back,
ultimately,

346
00:19:12,960 --> 00:19:15,800
into the old comedy
of people like Aristophanes.

347
00:19:17,400 --> 00:19:20,640
Lear takes nonsense
in a new direction.

348
00:19:20,640 --> 00:19:23,360
He perhaps builds on some
of the ideas

349
00:19:23,360 --> 00:19:26,400
that are present in earlier
nonsense... Mm.

350
00:19:26,400 --> 00:19:30,440
..but his nonsense is
full of lyricism, of pathos,

351
00:19:30,440 --> 00:19:33,000
of characters...

352
00:19:33,000 --> 00:19:37,880
and it's hugely exuberant,
both verbally and visually

353
00:19:37,880 --> 00:19:41,280
and I think it has much more
depth... Hm.

354
00:19:41,280 --> 00:19:44,440
..than much nonsense writing
before it.

355
00:19:44,440 --> 00:19:48,840
As well as giving
nonsense his own emotional depth,

356
00:19:48,840 --> 00:19:52,680
Lear would bring to his poetry
a pioneering visual style.

357
00:19:54,280 --> 00:19:56,760
In 1846, he published his first book,

358
00:19:56,760 --> 00:20:00,040
a collection of limericks called
A Book Of Nonsense.

359
00:20:00,040 --> 00:20:03,160
"Fantastical rhymes without
reason", he called it.

360
00:20:03,160 --> 00:20:05,840
He used expensive
lithographic printing

361
00:20:05,840 --> 00:20:08,520
as he'd done with his earlier
book of parrots.

362
00:20:08,520 --> 00:20:10,560
Lear's case is unique, I think,

363
00:20:10,560 --> 00:20:14,760
for the 1846 edition, the first
edition of A Book of Nonsense,

364
00:20:14,760 --> 00:20:17,320
because he is both the author
of the verse

365
00:20:17,320 --> 00:20:20,240
and the creator of the illustrations
so...

366
00:20:20,240 --> 00:20:23,080
And this is not the case with
a lot of children's books

367
00:20:23,080 --> 00:20:24,880
where the author
would write the text

368
00:20:24,880 --> 00:20:27,720
and perhaps the illustrations
would be provided afterwards.

369
00:20:27,720 --> 00:20:30,480
They would be done by a commercial
illustrator, for example,

370
00:20:30,480 --> 00:20:34,320
and put in, not necessarily with
the full approval of the author.

371
00:20:34,320 --> 00:20:36,000
For its first edition,

372
00:20:36,000 --> 00:20:39,880
Lear wrote under the pseudonym
of Derry down Derry,

373
00:20:39,880 --> 00:20:43,200
the name of an Elizabethan fool.

374
00:20:43,200 --> 00:20:45,560
There was an old Derry down Derry

375
00:20:45,560 --> 00:20:47,920
who loved to see little folks merry

376
00:20:47,920 --> 00:20:49,240
so he made them a book

377
00:20:49,240 --> 00:20:50,760
and with laughter they shook

378
00:20:50,760 --> 00:20:53,200
at the fun of that Derry down Derry!

379
00:20:56,320 --> 00:20:58,840
One of the things that contemporary
reviewers remarked was

380
00:20:58,840 --> 00:21:02,640
that it was partly the illustrations
that children so loved

381
00:21:02,640 --> 00:21:06,120
because so many 19th-century books
were not illustrated.

382
00:21:06,120 --> 00:21:09,960
Often, they were really quite small.
Yes, you've got some there.

383
00:21:09,960 --> 00:21:13,520
So, you know, this is an example
of a book from the 1820s.

384
00:21:13,520 --> 00:21:17,320
The English Reading Book in Verse,
1822,

385
00:21:17,320 --> 00:21:20,400
and it's really quite tiny, which,
of course, in a sense,

386
00:21:20,400 --> 00:21:23,160
is suited to small fingers
of children

387
00:21:23,160 --> 00:21:26,120
but, at the same time,
it's not very rewarding.

388
00:21:26,120 --> 00:21:29,360
The type is very small
and we have, you know,

389
00:21:29,360 --> 00:21:32,080
poems which are called things
like Meekness.

390
00:21:32,080 --> 00:21:35,120
You know, many of them
are quite evangelical

391
00:21:35,120 --> 00:21:37,480
in telling children
how they should feel,

392
00:21:37,480 --> 00:21:39,040
whereas, if you look at...

393
00:21:39,040 --> 00:21:42,400
This is a later addition
of Lear's Book of Nonsense.

394
00:21:42,400 --> 00:21:45,720
You have this wonderful
acreage of space.

395
00:21:45,720 --> 00:21:49,840
There's a tremendous exuberance
of line, where...

396
00:21:49,840 --> 00:21:53,360
Here we have the women who is
supposedly baking her husband

397
00:21:53,360 --> 00:21:55,280
by mistake in a stove,

398
00:21:55,280 --> 00:21:56,760
but we can tell from her expression

399
00:21:56,760 --> 00:21:59,320
that it is actually
far from accidental.

400
00:22:00,520 --> 00:22:03,920
'I'm interested in that relationship
Lear creates

401
00:22:03,920 --> 00:22:05,680
'between image and text...

402
00:22:08,840 --> 00:22:11,280
'..so I've come to visit
Ralph Steadman,

403
00:22:11,280 --> 00:22:14,560
'a modern-day master of cartoons
and caricature.'

404
00:22:14,560 --> 00:22:17,240
This is your studio!
This is where it all happens.

405
00:22:23,960 --> 00:22:27,640
Oh, and the piggy-wig here.
It's lovely.

406
00:22:28,960 --> 00:22:31,200
Ralph has an interesting take on Lear

407
00:22:31,200 --> 00:22:34,560
and believes that the illustrations
are so crucial to his work

408
00:22:34,560 --> 00:22:37,760
that he must have drawn them
before he wrote the poetry.

409
00:22:37,760 --> 00:22:42,800
I'm certain he experimented with
his curiosity first, visually.

410
00:22:42,800 --> 00:22:45,920
Did a drawing. Did a drawing
and then thought,

411
00:22:45,920 --> 00:22:51,520
"What is that?" You know, "Oh,
it's..." A jumbly. A jumbly. Yes.

412
00:22:51,520 --> 00:22:55,800
Wittgenstein said, the...
German philosopher, wasn't it?

413
00:22:55,800 --> 00:22:58,520
The only thing of value
is the thing you cannot say

414
00:22:58,520 --> 00:23:00,280
but, if you can see it,

415
00:23:00,280 --> 00:23:02,680
wow, you see it immediately.

416
00:23:02,680 --> 00:23:06,640
That is a really interesting thing
to think about.

417
00:23:06,640 --> 00:23:11,560
Ralph thinks his anarchic creative
process is similar to Lear's,

418
00:23:11,560 --> 00:23:13,840
letting his feelings
and thoughts flow

419
00:23:13,840 --> 00:23:17,000
from when the first inkblot
hits the page.

420
00:23:17,000 --> 00:23:18,640
Ah! Oh, look at that.

421
00:23:18,640 --> 00:23:22,400
I can see a face already there.
A mouth.

422
00:23:22,400 --> 00:23:26,520
He thinks the only way to persuade me
is to take me out of my comfort zone,

423
00:23:26,520 --> 00:23:27,960
a man of words,

424
00:23:27,960 --> 00:23:30,080
and get my hands dirty.

425
00:23:30,080 --> 00:23:33,400
This is an old-fashioned pen. Yes.

426
00:23:33,400 --> 00:23:36,840
Don't you want to do it with a...
I don't know how to. I'll have to...

427
00:23:36,840 --> 00:23:39,480
You're going to have a go now.
So what do you want me to do?

428
00:23:39,480 --> 00:23:42,080
Just draw something? Draw something
as part of that drawing.

429
00:23:42,080 --> 00:23:44,320
What? Add to it? Add to it, yes.

430
00:23:46,760 --> 00:23:49,640
This is how Lear would have worked.
Yes, he would have done.

431
00:23:49,640 --> 00:23:52,640
What he saw from starting
to do drawings...

432
00:23:52,640 --> 00:23:54,640
To draw something down.

433
00:23:54,640 --> 00:23:56,960
Our combined effort has produced
a drawing

434
00:23:56,960 --> 00:23:59,720
that is definitely saying something,

435
00:23:59,720 --> 00:24:02,120
though I'm not sure what.

436
00:24:02,120 --> 00:24:03,800
Oh, that's a tongue, isn't it?

437
00:24:03,800 --> 00:24:05,960
Yes. Oh, yes.

438
00:24:05,960 --> 00:24:07,880
P is for Parstead,

439
00:24:07,880 --> 00:24:09,720
a funny bird-y word.

440
00:24:09,720 --> 00:24:11,680
Half Parsons, Half Steadman.

441
00:24:11,680 --> 00:24:13,600
A nonsensical bird.

442
00:24:13,600 --> 00:24:15,880
P is for Parstead.

443
00:24:15,880 --> 00:24:18,040
This is a genuine Parstead.

444
00:24:18,040 --> 00:24:19,440
It's a bastard.

445
00:24:19,440 --> 00:24:21,120
It's a Parstead bastard.

446
00:24:21,120 --> 00:24:23,920
It's past being a bastard.

447
00:24:23,920 --> 00:24:25,960
It's a bastard Parstead. Yes.

448
00:24:29,160 --> 00:24:32,640
So, which came first -
the Parstead or the egg?

449
00:24:32,640 --> 00:24:34,600
The drawing or the poetry?

450
00:24:34,600 --> 00:24:36,120
We may never know

451
00:24:36,120 --> 00:24:39,720
but what we can be sure of is
how completely integral

452
00:24:39,720 --> 00:24:41,800
Lear's drawings are to his verse.

453
00:24:43,360 --> 00:24:46,080
The pictures and the poems
are hand in glove in Lear.

454
00:24:46,080 --> 00:24:47,400
They always are.

455
00:24:47,400 --> 00:24:50,080
And he thought of his works
as picture-poems

456
00:24:50,080 --> 00:24:52,440
so, if you go to Edward Lear's diary

457
00:24:52,440 --> 00:24:57,320
and you go to the day on which he
composed The Owl and the Pussycat,

458
00:24:57,320 --> 00:25:01,800
the entry says,
"Went to visit the Simmons

459
00:25:01,800 --> 00:25:04,080
"with a picture-poem
for little Janet.

460
00:25:04,080 --> 00:25:06,880
He wrote The Owl and the Pussycat
for Janet Simmons,

461
00:25:06,880 --> 00:25:10,480
the daughter of the writer
John Altington Simmons.

462
00:25:10,480 --> 00:25:12,000
But what interests me is that,

463
00:25:12,000 --> 00:25:14,120
when he records writing
The Owl and the Pussycat,

464
00:25:14,120 --> 00:25:16,600
he describes it as a picture-poem,
hyphenated.

465
00:25:16,600 --> 00:25:18,360
They go together.

466
00:25:19,720 --> 00:25:22,120
I mean, I think there is
a sort of elements to that

467
00:25:22,120 --> 00:25:24,320
where he's kind of capturing

468
00:25:24,320 --> 00:25:26,920
the Victorian engagement
with the visual imagination.

469
00:25:26,920 --> 00:25:29,080
He's kind of combining
all the senses

470
00:25:29,080 --> 00:25:31,800
so both the sound of the poems

471
00:25:31,800 --> 00:25:35,040
and the visual layout
and the illustrations.

472
00:25:35,040 --> 00:25:39,040
I guess, in a sense, he's the first
sort of multimedia poet in that way

473
00:25:39,040 --> 00:25:43,160
and that's the sort of most enduring
aspect of his legacy.

474
00:25:45,600 --> 00:25:49,880
Lear was living in self-imposed exile
as a painter in Italy

475
00:25:49,880 --> 00:25:52,320
when Nonsense Songs was published.

476
00:25:52,320 --> 00:25:55,960
he always dismissed his writing,
which he called "Bosh,"

477
00:25:55,960 --> 00:25:58,600
but the critics thought otherwise.

478
00:25:58,600 --> 00:26:01,360
Some of the responses are
quite interesting

479
00:26:01,360 --> 00:26:03,120
from a modern point of view.

480
00:26:03,120 --> 00:26:06,320
So, for example, one of the critics
in the Spectator noticed

481
00:26:06,320 --> 00:26:10,200
that it's the female cat
who proposes to the male owl,

482
00:26:10,200 --> 00:26:14,040
in the true spirit of women's
rights, says the reviewer.

483
00:26:14,040 --> 00:26:15,880
So there's something, you know,

484
00:26:15,880 --> 00:26:19,560
which is actually quite
unconventional about these poems

485
00:26:19,560 --> 00:26:21,800
that, you know, nowadays,
they're so familiar,

486
00:26:21,800 --> 00:26:23,880
particularly The Owl
and the Pussycat,

487
00:26:23,880 --> 00:26:26,640
but there's a spirit of liberty
about them,

488
00:26:26,640 --> 00:26:28,680
which I think is part of
what we love

489
00:26:28,680 --> 00:26:31,360
and what contemporaries
responded to, as well.

490
00:26:33,440 --> 00:26:38,280
Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany
and Alphabets is now out of print

491
00:26:38,280 --> 00:26:43,480
but Lear's most popular poems have
lasted in anthologies ever since,

492
00:26:43,480 --> 00:26:46,560
as has his pioneering
nonsensical spirit,

493
00:26:46,560 --> 00:26:49,320
which has been admired
and reincarnated

494
00:26:49,320 --> 00:26:52,720
in the work of many other writers
to this day.

495
00:26:52,720 --> 00:26:59,200
You can find Lear influencing
poets like TS Eliot, WH Auden

496
00:26:59,200 --> 00:27:03,040
and also people like Spike Milligan,
Monty Python,

497
00:27:03,040 --> 00:27:06,800
so I think he touches poetry
and culture and comedy

498
00:27:06,800 --> 00:27:08,560
in lots and lots of places.

499
00:27:10,000 --> 00:27:14,560
In 1886, Edward Lear wrote
his last ever nonsense poem,

500
00:27:14,560 --> 00:27:17,880
Incidents in the Life
of My Uncle Arly.

501
00:27:17,880 --> 00:27:20,520
He could've been writing
his own epitaph

502
00:27:20,520 --> 00:27:23,840
it so clearly sums up
the essence of his life,

503
00:27:23,840 --> 00:27:25,600
his love of nature and travel,

504
00:27:25,600 --> 00:27:29,600
but his deep feelings at being an
outsider and of never fitting in.

505
00:27:31,360 --> 00:27:33,440
On a little heap of barley,

506
00:27:33,440 --> 00:27:35,880
died my aged uncle Arly

507
00:27:35,880 --> 00:27:38,040
and they buried him one night

508
00:27:38,040 --> 00:27:40,520
close beside the leafy thicket.

509
00:27:40,520 --> 00:27:43,560
There his hat and railway ticket,

510
00:27:43,560 --> 00:27:46,360
there his ever faithful cricket.

511
00:27:48,240 --> 00:27:51,400
But his shoes were far too tight.

512
00:27:58,240 --> 00:28:01,240
Well, if you've enjoyed this
programme about Edward Lear

513
00:28:01,240 --> 00:28:05,560
and his nonsense songs and stories
and verse and so forth,

514
00:28:05,560 --> 00:28:08,560
and also enjoy the other books
in this series,

515
00:28:08,560 --> 00:28:09,600
then go to...

516
00:28:15,000 --> 00:28:17,640
..and follow the link to
the Open University.