Denis Moriarty's talk on Edward Lear, 9 December

Thanks to Robbie Gooders for supplying the above picture by Edward Lear.

Many thanks  also to Howard Norton for the following write-up of our latest meeting:

Denis Moriarty’s  talk on Edward Lear at the December meeting on Literary Society introduced us to one of the most extraordinary literary figures of the nineteenth century.  Holbrook Jackson, in his introduction to the Complete Nonsense Rhymes, writes, ‘There was something preposterous about Edward Lear, amiably preposterous’.

Denis did ample justice to his subject’s amiable eccentricity: his talk was laced with humour throughout which made it a perfect appetiser for Christmas.  Like all good speakers, Denis didn’t hesitate to explore alluring cul-de-sacs.  For example, how many of us knew that snooker was invented at the hill station of Ootacamund (Ooty)?  Another characteristic of an effective presentation is that it encourages the listener to explore further.  Denis certainly did that:  he left so many fascinating questions unanswered.  (In this regard, can I recommend Vivien Noakes’ splendid book, ‘Edward Lear The Life of a Wanderer’) 

Would Lear have become a Royal Academician if he had been less prolific?  In reality, that wasn’t an option.  Lear’s past forced him to be a ‘pictorial merchant’.  As in the cases of Dickens and Trollope and so many other famous Victorians, his father had been in a debtor’s prison and, as he had sired twentyone children, perhaps one should not be surprised. 

Would Lear have been the brilliant humourist he was if he had not been a melancholic cursed with frequent bouts of depression to the extent that ‘he would walk around a room with his face streaming with tears of loneliness?.  One wonders, if he had lived in a more permissive era, whether he would  have attempted suicide.

Would Lear have been a happier, albeit less creative figure, if he had had a stable marriage?  His emotional homosexuality and fear of commitment prevented that and most of his relationships ended in frustration so that, at the end of his life, this most clubbable of men had to rely on his cat, ‘Old Foss’, for companionship.  In a similar way Tennyson postponed his marriage because he was fearful of passing on Lear’s demon, epilepsy, to future generations.

What exactly were Lear’s feelings for his estranged friend’s wife, Emily Tennyson?  They must have been fairly intense for him to have named his house in San Remo after her.

Finally, how did Lear interact with the young Queen Victoria as he taught her to draw?  He certainly had ambivalent feelings towards the monarchy.  One would like to have been a fly on the  wall.

As Denis continued, we were amazed by the range of Lear’s interests and his versatility: ornithologist, painter in watercolours and oils, scintillating diarist and letter-writer, teacher and accomplished tenor who once reduced an audience to tears as he rendered several of Tennyson’s poems which he had set to music himself.  But above all, he will be remembered as a comic rhymester of genius whose nonsense delighted his contemporaries.  Incidentally, how astonishing that an age of grim religiosity should have produced the two greatest masters on comic verse in the English language; Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear. 

For all his tortured creativity, Lear remained a marginal figure who never quite became an eminent Victorian, whereas Lewis Carroll did.  Perhaps history has been a little unkind to Edward Lear.

For further information on Edward Lear CLICK HERE