Nonsense, nonsense, and more nonsense
Ah, yes, anyone actually bothering to read this blog will notice my preoccupation for the nonsensical. This is partially because nonsense is a key aspect of my dissertation, and I'm stuck with thinking about it ad nauseum. It is also because I have a fondness for it. We all need a little silliness, a little deliberate and ideally jocular absurdity. It reminds us not to take ourselves too seriously. It reminds us not to make casual -- and often flip-- assumptions. It reminds us to turn the world upside down for a bit so we can be reminded that mystification and bewilderment can be joys as well as burdens. It reminds us that the intellect only takes us so far. It reminds us that a child's imagination is often greater than a philosopher's wisdom. And, yes, it reminds us that we should let ourselves, every now and again, to be the fool, if only to teach us humility, humour, and even deference. 'Who's the fool now?' needn't be a tsk tsk tsk-ing phrase.

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Martin said to his man
Fie man, fie!
O Martin said to his man
Who's the fool now?
Martin said to his man
Fill thou the cup and I the can
Thos hast well drunken, man,
Who's the fool now?

I see a sheep shearing corn.
Fie man, fie!
I see a sheep shearing corn.
Who's the fool now?
I see a sheep shearing corn,
And a cuckold blow his horn.
Thou hast well drunken, man,
Who's the fool now?

I see a man in the moon.
Fie man, fie!
I see a man in the moon.
Who's the fool now?
I see a man in the moon
Clouting of Saint Peter's shoon.
Thou hast well drunken, man,
Who's the fool now?

I see a hare chase a hound.
Fie man, fie!
I see a hare chase a hound.
Who's the fool now?
I see a hare chase a hound
Twenty mile above the ground.
Thou hast well drunken, man,
Who's the fool now?
I see a goose ring a hog.
Fie man, fie!

I see a goose ring a hog.
Who's the fool now?
I see a goose ring a hog,
And a snail that did bite a dog.
Thou hast well drunken, man,
Who's the fool now?
I see a mouse catch the cat.
Fie man, fie!

I see a mouse catch the cat.
Who's the fool now?
I see a mouse catch the cat
And the cheese to eat the rat.
Thou hast well drunken, man,
Who's the fool now?

--- from an anonymous poet, circa 1609

The Pessimist

Nothing to do but work,
Nothing to eat but food,
Nothing to wear but clothes,
To keep one from going nude.

Nothing to breathe but air,
Quick as a flash 'tis gone;
Nowhere to fall but off,
Nowhere to stand but on.

Nothing to comb but hair,
Nowhere to sleep but in bed,
Nothing to weep but tears,
Nothing to bury but dead.

Nothing to sing but songs
Ah, well, alas, alack!
Nowhere to go but out,
Nowhere to come but back.

Nothing to see but sights,
Nothing to quench but thirst,
Nothing to have but what we've got.
Thus thro' life we are cursed.

Nothing to strike but a gait;
Everything moves that goes.
Nothing at all but common sense
Can ever withstand these woes.

--- Benjamin Franklin King

They're not complicated poems by any stretch of the imagination. The metrics are specific, regimented, repetitive-- but their forms are more strictly musical, and remind of the sort of knee-bumping ditties most of us heard as children, when most of loved poetry, when our idea of poetry wasn't The Waste Land or The Prelude but "Hickory Dickory Dock" and "Old Mother Hubbard." But somewhere along the line, people lose the internal air for the music, especially when the structures become more complicated and the language more sophisticated. Lord knows, many of my kids over the years probably wish I'd let them read stuff aloud in class more as a means to keep each other awake, but the sad fact is that so few hear the music, and it's rather like listening to a young clarinetist squawking and squeaking through Beethoven. The ear rankles, the mind suffers, the poetry is violated. There HAS to be a way to improve the mind's ear. And if there is one-- without going directly to the tenets of music, which does prove that people can remember lyrics so long as they know the way things are supposed to sound-- it might be to compel people to return to the level of the nonsensical, to the nuts and bolts of verbal metrics. Yes, I'm thinking we may have to send people back to literary kindergarten. I don't mean this condescendingly. But one of the great truisms of life, it seems to me, is that we lose sight of the basics, the fundamentals, as we presume we've recognized and understood them; but basics, fundamentals, need to be refreshed, and our understanding of them revisited, enlarged, sometimes merely remembered. In our beginning is our end. In our end is our beginning. Damn bloody right.