{"id":6356,"date":"2012-09-18T09:01:27","date_gmt":"2012-09-18T14:01:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.chesterton.org\/?page_id=6356"},"modified":"2018-12-06T14:45:59","modified_gmt":"2018-12-06T20:45:59","slug":"lecture-93","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chesterton.org\/store\/lecture-93\/","title":{"rendered":"Lecture 93: Laughing in Rhyme"},"content":{"rendered":"

G.K. Chesterton\u2019s first book was nonsense poetry. His first book of prose had an essay in defense of nonsense.<\/p>\n

W.H. Auden did not encounter that first book, Greybeards at Play<\/a><\/em>, until about seventy-five years later. He said that it contained \u201csome of the best pure nonsense verse in English.\u201d He went on to say, \u201cI cannot think of a single comic poem by Chesterton that is not a triumphant success… Surely it is high time that such enchanting pieces should be readily available.\u201d<\/p>\n

It took more than another decade, but Marie Smith answered the call in 1987, and put this collection together, illustrating it with Chesterton\u2019s own wonderfully amusing drawings. (This book is now out of print, but many of the works are in other collections. -Ed.)<\/p>\n

The book includes all of Greybeards<\/em>, all of the Flying Inn<\/em> songs, (\u201cThe Rolling English Road,\u201d \u201cThe Song of Quoodle,\u201d etc.), Chesterton\u2019s parodies of other poets, his satirical verse, a few ballades (such as \u201cBallade of a Suicide\u201d), and poetic inscriptions that he spontaneously penned in books that he gave as gifts. It even includes a few poems that are not by Chesterton: a few unsigned pieces from G.K.\u2019s Weekly<\/em> that were actually written by George C. Heseltine, and one of the epigrams does sound suspiciously like Belloc. But it\u2019s worth repeating:<\/p>\n

Of Uncle Humphrey who can sing?
\nHis name can\u2019t rhyme with anything.
\nHow much superior is Aunt Harriet
\nWho rhymes correctly to Iscariot.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The drinking songs and traveling songs are perhaps Chesterton\u2019s best known comic verse. Less well known are his parodies and burlesques, which include the absolutely brilliant and hilarious \u201cVariations on an Air\u201d of the nursery rhyme Old King Cole in the styles of Tennyson, Yeats, Browning, Whitman, and Swinburne. He also takes on famous poets by offering poetic answers to some of their famous poems: the skylark answers Wordsworth, the sea replies to Byron, and the Fat White Woman That Nobody Loves answers the unfortunate Frances Cornford (the \u201cfat-head poet that nobody reads.\u201d) The Free-Versifiers are thoroughly skewered in \u201cTo a Modern Poet,\u201d where Chesterton showers fake sympathy in their own self-indulgent style:<\/p>\n

am sorry
\nif you have
\na green pain
\ngnawing your brain away.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While parodying poets is fun, poking fun at politicians is almost serious. F.E. Smith, who became Lord Birkenhead, felt the sharp tip of Chesterton\u2019s pen (\u201cChuck it, Smith!\u201d)<\/p>\n

Chesterton wrote over 60 ballades, and this was the first book in which most of them appeared. The form is stringent and delightful, with its refrain and its insulting envoi, as in \u201cBallade to a Philanthropist\u201d:<\/p>\n

Prince, I will not be knighted! No!
\nPut up your sword and stow your tricks!
\nOffering the Garter is no go \u2013
\nBut will you lend me two-and-six?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As for the book inscriptions, the two that do not belong in this collection are Chesterton\u2019s dedications to Bentley and Belloc from The Man Who Was Thursday<\/a><\/em> and The Napoleon of Notting Hill<\/a><\/em>. They are anything but light. More fitting is his inscription to Fr. O\u2019Connor that ends:
\nThis is a book I do not like \u2013
\nTake it away to Heckmondwike.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Collected Nonsense Verse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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