Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

A collection of Lear's nonsense songs, stories, rhymes, alphabets, and pictures taken from "Nonsense Songs and Stories," "Nonsense Botany," and "Nonsense Alphabets."

Nonsense literature, English --- Nonsense verses

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Five hundred years before 'Jabberwocky' and Tender Buttons, writers were already preoccupied with the question of nonsense. But even as the prevalence in medieval texts of gibberish, babble, birdsong, and allusions to bare voice has come into view in recent years, an impression persists that these phenomena are exceptions that prove the rule of the period's theologically motivated commitment to the kernel of meaning over and against the shell of the mere letter. This book shows that, to the contrary, the foundational object of study of medieval linguistic thought was vox non-significativa, the utterance insofar as it means nothing whatsoever, and that this fact was not lost on medieval writers of various kinds.

English literature --- Nonsense literature, English --- Philosophy, Medieval. --- History and criticism.

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Literature --- Nonsense literature, English --- Nonsense literature, American --- History and criticism --- -Nonsense literature, English --- -English nonsense literature --- Nonsense literature, English, [etc.] --- English literature --- American nonsense literature --- American literature --- -History and criticism --- Nonsense literature, English - History and criticism --- Nonsense literature, American - History and criticism --- English nonsense literature

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Why do we value literature so? Many would say for the experience it brings us. But what is it about that experience that makes us treasure certain writings above others? Stephen Booth suggests that the greatest appeal of our most valued works may be that they are, in one way or another, nonsensical. He uses three disparate texts--the Gettysburg Address, Ben Jonson's epitaphs on his children, and Shakespeare's 'Twelfth Night'--to demonstrate how poetics triumphs over logic in the invigorating mental activity that enriches our experience of reading. Booth presents his case in a book that is crisply playful while at the same time thoroughly analytical. He demonstrates the lapses in logic and the irrational connections in examples of very different types of literature, showing how they come close to incoherence yet maintain for the reader a reliable order and purpose. Ultimately, Booth argues, literature gives us the capacity to cope effortlessly with, and even to transcend, the complicated and demanding mental experiences it generates for us. This book is in part a witty critique of the trends--old and new--of literary criticism, written by an accomplished and gifted scholar. But it is also a testimony to the power of the process of reading itself. 'Precious Nonsense' is certain to bring pleasure to anyone interested in language and its beguiling possibilities.

English literature --- Nonsense literature, English --- English Literature --- English --- Languages & Literatures --- History and criticism. --- History and criticism --- Shakespeare, William, --- Lincoln, Abraham, --- Jonson, Ben, --- English nonsense literature --- Nonsense literature, English, [etc.] --- Goldmark, Rubin,

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Carroll, Lewis --- Nonsense literature, English --- Fantasy literature, English --- Logic in literature. --- History and criticism. --- Logic in literature --- -Fantasy literature, English --- -English fantasy literature --- Fantastic literature, English --- English literature --- English nonsense literature --- Nonsense literature, English, [etc.] --- History and criticism --- -History and criticism --- Dodgson, Charles Lutwidge --- Carroll, Lewis, --- Testoni, Giampaolo, --- Nonsense literature, English - History and criticism. --- Fantasy literature, English - History and criticism.