Programme 2

How Pleasant To Know Mr Lear

  Edward Lear (1812-1888)

The poem pokes fun at the poet’s own life with seemingly nonsensical whimsy.

Lear had an eye and an ear for the absurd, reflected not only in what he said but in the outrageous liberties he would take with rhythm and rhyme:

When he walks in a waterproof white,
The children run after him so!
Calling out, ‘He’s come out in his night–
Gown, that crazy old Englishman, oh!’

Despite Lear describing his verse as ‘nonsense pure and absolute’, the programme’s interviewees (Sophie Hannah, Roger McGough, Jerry Rothenberg and Matthew Sweeney) find his work tinged with an underlying sadness.