Illegality and colloquialism are the basic elements of five-element limerick, and both are indispensable (this is my opinion and can be discussed). Because the poetic language has its own characteristics, sometimes nouns or phenomena are piled up, and sometimes the word order is split or reversed, such as "apes whimper in the high wind in the wide sky, birds fly across the white sand in clear lake on their way home", "Her hair is foggy, and her shoulders are cold", "Why do you wander at the fork in the road, and the children * * * touch the towel", "Sweet rice pecks at parrot particles, and the old phoenix branch lives in Wu Bi" and "Five Mountains, I. Du Fu abides by the law most strictly, but sometimes he subconsciously writes ancient poems. Similarly, some seemingly colloquial poems cannot be classified as limerick because they conform to the law. Therefore, to judge whether a limerick is written or not depends on whether it is legal and colloquial.
doggerel
The language of limerick is vulgar and simple; Poetry, especially modern poetry, emphasizes the rhythm and elegance of language.
Humorous limerick:
Most people call folk poetry "doggerel", and there is an allusion here.
In the Tang Dynasty, a man named Zhang Dayou wrote a poem about snow:
Mountains and rivers,
A black hole in a well.
The yellow dog is white,
The white dog is swollen.
The whole poem is vulgar and plain, and Zhang Dayou's reputation spread like wildfire. Later, people called vulgar poems limerick.
Interestingly, many celebrities in the past dynasties occasionally made oil paintings. According to legend, Su Shi has a horse face, while Su Xiaomei has a very wide forehead. They used to play jokes on each other with limerick. Su Shi first challenged:
The front foot has not left the boudoir, and the forehead has reached the front of Huatang.
Su Xiaomei not to be outdone, retorted:
Tears of homesickness last year began to flow to my lips this year.
Jie Jin, a great talent in the early Ming Dynasty, was humorous and resourceful. He once went fishing with Zhu Yuanzhang. Zhu fished for a long time, but he didn't see any fish hooked. He was angry. Jie Jin busy compliment him:
All the fish are afraid to go to the emperor. Long live the king who only catches dragons.
To put it bluntly, Zhu is "very happy"
Tang Bohu in Ming Dynasty was aloof and unwilling to covet precious things. He wrote a doggerel and hung it in the study to show his mind:
Without refining the elixir and meditation, there are immortals in the Peach Blossom Temple.
Write a picture of a castle peak for sale in your spare time, so as not to make money on earth.
Zheng Banqiao in the Qing Dynasty also had similar self-encouragement poems:
Bamboo is not relaxed at all, its roots are firmly embedded in the cracks in the rocks.
Tempering, southeast wind and northwest wind.
Limerick is often used to laugh at and tease others.
According to legend, when Ji Xiaolan wrote birthday couplets for an official's mother, he began to write:
The old lady is not human.
An official's face was livid.
Ji unhurried continued:
Nine days later, the fairy came to earth.
The official turned anger into joy and even sighed subtly. Unexpectedly, with a stroke of his pen, Ji turned out to be:
Adopted son is used to being a thief.
The official immediately fainted to the ground. Hand down to wake him up, ji and continued:
Stole a peach for my mother.
When I looked back at the official again, I looked pale, sweaty and flustered, as if I had reached the gate of hell.
There is another similar example. In ancient times, there was a scholar who wrote a jingle for the birthday of a family named Tao:
How helpless, how helpless, it is raining cats and dogs today.
On a rainy night, I wish Tao a long life, which is worse than torrential rain.
The first three sentences of the poem angered the main family, and each sentence was different from Feng. God came and made the birthday poem full of brilliance, which shows the wonderful thinking of this scholar.
Li was a gifted scholar and a master of oil painting in the pre-Qing Dynasty. According to the cloud, during Li's tenure as the examiner of Liangjiang, many scholars refused to accept it and joined hands with Li. Finally, everyone sang a poem on the topic of sparrows. Li recited two limerick poems without thinking. A cloud:
Nest after nest, 345678 nests.
How small the Phoenix is to eat Emperor Wang Qian Suzhong!
The second cloud:
One by one, they are all shallow hairs and sharp mouths.
Hair is light enough to fly, but mouth is sharp enough to sing.
Don't laugh, Dapeng is silent and spreads his wings for nine days.
Scholars first laughed, then laughed and laughed, and finally froze. Li Tiaoyuan smiled and said nothing, and roared off.
There are also emperors who write limericks. According to legend, during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, when an academician wrote a letter, he mistook "Weng Zhong" for "Weng Zhong", and Qianlong conveniently approved:
How can Weng Zhong be a model? Ten years of cold window has not contributed much.
It is not allowed to send Lin Han to Jiangnan for sentencing now.
Qianlong fought poison with poison, and deliberately wrote Kung Fu, Hanlin and Tongguan as Fugong, Hanlin and Tongguan. Hanlin was ashamed and went to Jiangnan.
The most interesting is a limerick that satirizes some so-called poets:
I have never seen a poet in my life, but I have seen a poet grow to eight feet long.
How can a poet fart on a high wall?
The language of this poem is vulgar, humorous and hilarious enough to make those "poets" feel ashamed.
Limerick is also often used to brag.
In ancient times, a group of scholars met in the wild by chance, boasted about their talents, argued with each other, and finally decided to sing a poem that best expressed their talents. A scholar beat the crowd and won the championship. Its poem cloud:
The number of articles in the world is Sanjiang, and the number of articles in Sanjiang is hometown.
Hometown is my brother, and my brother and I study it.
As soon as this poem came out, other literati had nothing to say.