Inventing nonsense and indulging in satire

By Alfreda de Silva

The Victorian age saw a good deal of humor-ous writing, beginning with Pickwick Papers by Dickens to the operas of Gilbert and Sullivan.

A Victorian specialty was Nonsense Verse. Though in later years, James Joyce and James Thurber had occasionally indulged in nonsense writing, its master creators were the Victorians, Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll.

Perhaps the reputation of this age as one of gloom and repression gave rise to the comedy element as a retort to this situation at the time. Or it could be that the writers themselves were escaping from a melancholy world of their own into a crazy topsy-turvy kingdom of puzzles in their comic invention.

Edward Lear was born in 1812. He was a landscape painter who published his first Book of Nonsense in 1846, a collection of limericks for children. However, he was not the creator of this form.

In later volumes of the Book of Nonsense, other forms he used were modelled on rhythms developed by his friend Tennyson.

Lear said of his poems that they were "nonsense pure and absolute". Obviously, this is a rare art not easily mastered by every poet.

He became famous for his The Owl and the Pussy Cat and the Jumblies, in which these lines occur:

.... On a winter's morn, on a stormy day,
In a sieve they went to sea.
And when the sieve turned round and round
And everyone cried "You'll be drowned!"
They called aloud, "Our sieve ain't big,
But we don't care a button we don't care fig
In a sieve we'll go to sea!"
Far and few far and few
Are the lands where the Jumblies live
Their heads are green and their hands are blue
And they went to sea in a sieve.

Of the same vintage as Edward Lear, and influenced by him to a certain extent, was Lewis Carroll, born in 1832, whose real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. He was a deacon of the Anglican church and lecturer in Mathematics at Oxford. His books Alice in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking Glass, were instant hits and remain so to this day.

These stories have been enjoyed at various levels by both children and adults and are performed by both groups on the stage.

Carroll's poems in these books are classic examples of nonsense, and clever nonsense at that.

This poem is like a mathematician's puzzle and is the basis for a word game in Through the Looking Glass. The whole thing is pure invention.

Jabberwocky
'T was brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe,
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

***

Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!

At Alice's request, an uproarious explanation of the poem Jabberwocky is given by Humpty Dumpty, who says that he can "explain all the poems ever invented - and a good many that haven't been invented yet".

Brillig, he volunteered, meant four o'clock in the afternoon, when you begin broiling things for dinner. Slithy, he suggested meant "lithe and slimy. It's like a portmanteau - two meanings packed into one word!"

In answer to Alice's question about 'Toves' he said, "They are something like corkscrews ... also they make nests in sundials, also they, live on cheese."

The answers continue till Alice is satisfied that she has grasped the meaning of the verse, including 'gyre' which is supposed to be the same as 'turning round and round' and gimble which is "to make holes like a gimlet."

To invent such nonsense must surely have had the backing of a most extraordinary imagination.

There are few anthologies of English poetry from Victorian times to the present day that do not have Lear and Carroll in them.

An American counterpart of these two was Emily Dickinson, born in 1830. She wrote hundreds of poems in seclusion and obscurity. These were discovered and published after her death. She is highly acclaimed in contemporary literature.

Though not classified as a writer of nonsense verse, her work displays wit, satire and innovative skill that uses new rhythmic and rhyming patterns. Here is Dickinson's I'm Nobody! Who are You?

I'm nobody! who are you?
Are you nobody too?
Then there's a pair of us, don't tell!
They'll banish us, you know.
How dreary to be somebody!
How public like a frog,
To tell your name the livelong day
To an adoring bog!

T.S. Eliot, (1888-1965) in St. Louis, Missouri and educated at Harvard and Oxford, spent two decades of his life in England, where he wrote some of his most memorable work. Celebrated for Prufrock, The Waste Land and the powerful verse drama Murder in the Cathedral, this great experimenter also wrote newly minted nonsense verse like this:

Lines for Cuscuscaraway
And Mirza Murad Ali Beg
............. How unpleasant to meet Mr. Eliot!
With a bobtail cur
In a coat of fur,
And a porpentine cat
And a wopsical hat
How unpleasant to meet Mr. Eliot!
When there his mouth be open or shut"

Ogden Nash (1902-1979) was well known for his light and whimsical verse. He tried his hand at many jobs - teacher, advertising agent, writer of street advertisements were some of them - before he took to editing with Doubleday Page Publishers.

He has written lyrics and scripts for radio and television. His first book of comic verse Hard Lines came out in 1951 and was an instant success. Here are some typical lines from him:

The turtle lives ' twixt plated decks
Which practically conceal its sex,
I think it clever of the turtle
In such a fix to be so fertile.

Sensitive and pure strokes

Bodh started painting at a very early age while home in Manali at the foothills of the Himalayas in India. Now better known as an artist and printmaker, he has held many solo exhibitions in Sri Lanka, India and Europe.

His career started off at the prestigious College of Fine Arts, Kala Bhavan in Shantiniketan, which was founded by Rabindranath Tagore, where he initially studied for his BFA (Hons.) in Printmaking. He continued with his Masters in Fine Arts for another two years, having been granted a National Scholarship in India. While he was at Shantiniketan he studied under some of India's famous artists and acquired a deeper dimension and skill in his work. He then won a Commonwealth scholarship to study printmaking for two years at the Slade School of Fine Arts in England.

He came to Sri Lanka in 1996 and lived here for two years with wife Druvinka, a well-known artist and son Tashi Samder.

Bodh took up an assignment as Director of the Heritage Art Gallery. Later, he became the Director of the Sapumal Printmaking Studio - the very first of its kind to be established here. This studio provided artists with the opportunity of expressing themselves through the medium of printmaking.

Bodh is not only a qualified printmaker, but also a painter, sculptor and muralist. His form of art is both sensitive and pure. As he is of Tibetan origin, his works display his originality which emerges as a sensitive form of art.

He is back at Shantiniketan now pursuing further studies - reading for his PhD. Although he has left Sri Lanka temporarily, he has left behind a legacy for art students to learn etching, engraving etc.

Bodh's exhibition opens at The Barefoot Gallery on June 28.

The art of healing

By Ruhanie Perera

As creative individuals we've always jumped at the chance to explore the magical worlds of art, drama, dance or music. They become a medium through which we can express our feelings, emotions...perhaps even the very depths of our soul when words cannot help us.

The arts are not just for the masters - they can be a recreational activity for anyone. They can also serve as a form of therapy, where not the end product is of paramount importance. Then the very process of drawing, expressing and discovering becomes the breakthrough in a very 'creative' healing process, known as art therapy.

This method of healing is followed at Sahanaya (The National Council for Mental Health). According to art therapist Sioban Jackson, activity groups create a safe place where clients are not judged. "Instead all they need is encouragement and then you see them go from being tense to being relaxed. Sometimes they open up and talk about their paintings and their feelings." She certainly sees a difference - "They now come in inspired."

A client (who does not wish to be named), who is part of the activity group at Sahanaya never in his wildest dreams imagined that he would ever paint. "I said, 'No, I can't draw' when I was first told to draw. But I was encouraged to try. I draw only designs because I'm better at that. Sometimes the paintings say what I am feeling. Then I feel relieved. I write what I feel when painting."

In recognition of their client's "achievements", Sahanaya has organised an art exhibition aptly named 'The Healing Arts'. The exhibition is no ordinary one. For, added to the paintings by the clients, there will be some photographs by Christopher Tribble - depicting the activity groups at work. It will open with a talk on mental health issues faced by the citizens of Sri Lanka. The more interactive segment will be art and drama workshops conducted by the Sahanaya staff. They will be conducted from the point of view of the client, so that visitors will be more sensitive to the issue of mental health.

Wasanthe Kotuwella, who conducts the drama workshops, feels that the greatest need today is for "people to get a better insight into the lives of our clients. They need support, total acceptance with respect. I come in prepared to accept every opinion - even though it may be difficult for me - because that is what's most precious to them."

This art exhibition with a difference will be held at the British Council auditorium from July1 to 3, from 10 a.m.

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