The Limerick Challenge

Posted on October 17, 2003 by Marco Graziosi

The Limerick Challenge
To mark National Poetry Day, you are formally invited to join the Magazine’s Limerick Challenge.
BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | 9 October 2003

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Nailing Spike

Posted on October 17, 2003 by Marco Graziosi

Nailing Spike [Milligan]
The combination of Spike, Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine, with help from deep-dish subversives emerging from their cocoons in the BBC, created an explosion of verbal anarchy that nevertheless flowed from a tradition, combining music hall with Lewis Carroll and the nonsense prose and poetry of Edward Lear. Carpenter does not make enough of this last influence, and a comparison of Lear’s and Milligan’s awkward trawl through life could have proved fascinating.
Guardian Unlimited Books | 20 September 2003

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Celebrity voices on charity CD

Posted on October 17, 2003 by Marco Graziosi

Celebrity voices on charity CD
Les Barker, 59, who lives in Bwlchgwyn near Wrexham, has released a poetry CD entitled Guide Cats for the Blind, to raise funds for the British Computer Association of the Blind.
His style is in the genre of nonsense verse, similar to that of Edward Lear, author of the Owl and the Pussycat.
BBC NEWS | 16 September 2003

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Anyone for Tennyson?

Posted on October 17, 2003 by Marco Graziosi

Anyone for Tennyson?
The Queen’s residence at Osbourne helped make the Isle of Wight fashionable among the cream of Victorian society: Charles Darwin, William Makepeace Thackeray, C. F. Watts and Julia Margaret Cameron, among others, all moved to Freshwater.
Of these, Tennyson was particularly close to Cameron and made frequent visits to Dimbola Lodge (her home), which is now open to the public. Rumours of an affair remain unquenched; the gate that Cameron had built at the back of her garden so that Tennyson could arrive secretly still stands.
Inside, the lodge is a shrine to the Victorian greats that Cameron photographed. More than 60 images, including pictures of Edward Lear, Henry Taylor, Robert Browning, Lewis Carroll, Darwin, Thackeray, Watts and Tennyson are displayed.
Telegraph | Travel | 9 September 2003

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Hamiltons sell up

Posted on October 17, 2003 by Marco Graziosi

Hamiltons sell up
Not much about Lear, but I’m trying to resume updating this blog after a long period and anything will do.
ic Liverpool | 8 September 2003

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Sentimental journey

Posted on August 25, 2003 by Marco Graziosi

Sentimental journey
THE idealised landscapes and saintly children of 19th century British watercolour painters are being cast in a different light in a new exhibition at Carrick Hill.
Natural Wonders: Visions of Home and Abroad, featuring 40 rarely seen paintings from the Art Gallery of South Australia, attempts to reach beyond surface interpretations of the works…
By the 1800s most landscapes were being painted for city audiences. Ideas of national identity, travel and topography are explored, the presence of Queen Victoria looms large and the exhibition contains a sketch by Edward Lear, who taught Queen Victoria watercolour painting.
The Advertiser | 25 August 2003

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Uncle Arly

Posted on August 23, 2003 by Marco Graziosi

My Uncle Arly, Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh
Rather endearingly unhinged, this celebration of the work of the nonsense poet Edward Lear takes the audience on a journey through France and Italy and into places in the mind that no map could ever chart. It gets curiouser and curiouser as it creates a straitjacketed Victorian world and then shows that the lunatics have taken over the asylum.
There is song, there is poetry, there is wordplay (oh for pizza in Pisa). And there are also huge puppet-like figures and some simple clowning and slapstick. Familiarity with the work of the author of The Owl and the Pussy-Cat and other nursery classics would certainly be a bonus, but it isn’t strictly necessary as long as you are prepared to leave reason and sanity behind and go with the flow.
A clever collaboration between physical-theatre company Hoipolloi and the children’s company Tiebreak, this is one of those shows that entirely defies categorisation. It is equally suitable for adults and children, and all it requires is an audience that is prepared to embrace the absurd.
Unlike Queen Victoria we were much amused in a gently entertaining way.
Guardian Unlimited | Arts reviews | 23 August 2003

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Records to tumble at Tatton

Posted on July 15, 2003 by Marco Graziosi

Records to tumble at Tatton [flower] show
A show newcomer among 18 garden designers is Sarah Lynch, who has created the Owl and the Pussycat garden.
Sarah, 36, who lives in Cheshire, is taking part in a flower show for the first time and her entry promises to be one of the most theatrical designs this year.
Her garden for the Anthony Nolan Trust, supported by Cheshire Building Society, will provide visitors with a magical journey through Edward Lear’s verse of 1871, and incorporates the famous pea green boat.
ManchesterOnline – News

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The Real Limerick

Posted on July 9, 2003 by Marco Graziosi

The Real Limerick
Again, a newgroup message discussing my “dry treatise” on the limerick in some detail. Intersting for the limericks by Swinburne it quotes.

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Edward Lear's Tribute to the Moon

Posted on July 9, 2003 by Marco Graziosi

“Edward Lear’s Tribute to the Moon”
A humourous exchange providing a deep interpretation of Lear’s limerick on the Old Man of the Hague.
Google Groups

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