Origin of The Name
The origin of the name limerick for this type of poem is debated. As of several years ago, its usage was first documented in England in 1898 (New English Dictionary) and in the United States in 1902, but in recent years several earlier uses have been documented. The name is generally taken to be a reference to the City or County of Limerick in Ireland sometimes particularly to the Maigue Poets, and may derive from an earlier form of nonsense verse parlour game that traditionally included a refrain that included "Will you come (up) to Limerick?" The earliest known use of the term limerick for this type poem is an 1880 reference, in a Saint John, New Brunswick newspaper, to an apparently well-known tune,
- :There was a young rustic named Mallory,
- who drew but a very small salary.
- When he went to the show,
- his purse made him go
- to a seat in the uppermost gallery.
- Tune: Wont you come to Limerick.
Read more about this topic: Limerick (poetry)
Famous quotes containing the words origin of the, origin of and/or origin:
“The essence of morality is a questioning about morality; and the decisive move of human life is to use ceaselessly all light to look for the origin of the opposition between good and evil.”
—Georges Bataille (1897–1962)
“In the woods in a winter afternoon one will see as readily the origin of the stained glass window, with which Gothic cathedrals are adorned, in the colors of the western sky seen through the bare and crossing branches of the forest.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The origin of storms is not in clouds,
our lightning strikes when the earth rises,
spillways free authentic power:
dead John Brown’s body walking from a tunnel
to break the armored and concluded mind.”
—Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980)