The Errol Flynn Blog

Dear fellow Flynn fans,

Picking up Gentlebard Tim`s thread on errolyric: www.theerrolflynnblog.com…
I challenge you now to enter your very own limerick on our Hollywood hero, his friends and woes.

According to Wikipedia, the standard form of a limerick is a stanza of five lines, with the first, second and fifth rhyming with one another and having three feet of three syllables each; and the shorter third and fourth lines also rhyming with each other, but having only two feet of three syllables. The defining “foot” of a limerick’s meter is usually the anapaest, (ta-ta-TUM), but catalexis (missing a weak syllable at the beginning of a line) and extra-syllable rhyme (which adds an extra unstressed syllable) can make limericks appear amphibrachic (ta-TUM-ta).
The first line traditionally introduces a person and a place, with the place appearing at the end of the first line and establishing the rhyme scheme for the second and fifth lines. In early limericks, the last line was often essentially a repeat of the first line, although this is no longer customary.

The form appeared in England in the early years of the 18th century. It was popularized by Edward Lear in the 19th century, although he did not use the term. Gershon Legman, who compiled the largest and most scholarly anthology, held that the true limerick as a folk form is always obscene, and cites similar opinions by Arnold Bennett and George Bernard Shaw, describing the clean limerick as a “periodic fad and object of magazine contests, rarely rising above mediocrity”. From a folkloric point of view, the form is essentially transgressive; violation of taboo is part of its function. Lear is unusual in his creative use of the form, satirising without overt violation:

There was a young lady of Niger
who smiled as she rode on a tiger;
They returned from the ride
with the lady inside,
and the smile on the face of the tiger.

Here`s another good instruction on how to put your words into play: www.webexhibits.org…

Like the old saying goes: creativity is 10% Inspiration and 90% transpiration. So let`s transpire y`all.

The author of the most inventive errolimerick get`s an exclusive copy of a still from my private collection of Errol Flynn`s unfinished “The Story of William Tell” film.

Enjoy,

— shangheinz