Can you turn a major literary work into a Limerick?

[Ragamuffin_artist]

Flawed as it is, I humbly submit to you the following original:

"Hamlet"

There once was a young Danish Lad
With an uncle who poisoned his dad.
Saw his gal kick the bucket;
held a skull and thought ‘fuck it’
And murdered the treacherous cad.

[DACrowe]

MacBeth was a great Scottish laird,
Whose future, through witches, was bared.
He murdered the king,
But now here's the thing;
It turns out MacDuff was cesare'ed.

[wild_quinine]

Er... It's not a major literary work, but it seems apropos, so here goes:

"A Year in Fife Park"

It's about a Semi called Quinn Wilde,
who was a nervous and excitable child -
but he sat in the dark,
in a room in Fife Park,
until his outlook grew increasingly mild.

[DACrowe]

It's about a Semi called Quinn Wilde,
who was a nervous and excitable child -
but he sat in the dark,
in a room in Fife Park,
until his outlook grew increasingly mild.

No offense intended but for a writer you seem to have an appalling sense of rhythm.

There once was a semi called Wilde
A nervous excitable child,
But he sat in the dark,
In a room in Fife Park,
And grew there increasingly mild.

Er... another contribution?

Ahab was a captain at sea,
To a whale said "I'll grapple with thee"
But when the moment arrived,
No crewman survived.
No one but Ishmael; me.

[wild_quinine]

No offense intended but for a writer you seem to have an appalling sense of rhythm.

lol! I thought that was the point of Limericks. Trust me to fall in with the Haiku crowd.

Here's a slightly better one, about a much better book, to prove I'm not just a hack:

There is a six hundred page book:
'Something Happened', so please take a look.
'cause no one can spot,
exactly just what.
(the title's ironic as fuck).

[DACrowe]

lol! I thought that was the point of Limericks. Trust me to fall in with the Haiku crowd.

With haiku you are concerned with syllables; with limericks you don't need to be so long as you get the rhythm/metre right.

There once was a lady named liz,
Who got herself into a tis.
She disliked Mr Darcy,
'Cause he kept on being arsey,
But then changed her mind - that's showbiz.

[jollytiddlywink]

No offense intended but for a writer you seem to have an appalling sense of rhythm.

lol! I thought that was the point of Limericks. Trust me to fall in with the Haiku crowd.

Here's a slightly better one, about a much better book, to prove I'm not just a hack:

There is a six hundred page book:
'Something Happened', so please take a look.
'cause no one can spot,
exactly just what.
(the title's ironic as fuck).

A hack? Indeed not. A hack wouldn't bother to use slant rhyme.

Scrooge was filthy rich but mean,
Until a ghostly visitation he had seen.
And at dawn's first light,
He leapt to put it right,
Yearning to alter Tim's piteous funeral scene.

And, because I'm now in the mood, an effort unrelated to literary works:

At the maps Goering and Hitler did glower,
Seeking still to expand their dark power,
But our fighters climbed high,
And defended our sky,
Salvation; the Few's finest hour.

[wild_quinine]

With haiku you are concerned with syllables;

It's moras in fact,
since we are being anal
about poetry

with limericks you don't need to be so long as you get the rhythm/metre right.

The funniest thing's that you do,
though how many's a bit up to you
but as i discovered,
if you mix and match, brother,
will the regulars all start to boo

A hack? Indeed not. A hack wouldn't bother to use slant rhyme.

Ah. Yes. Well. They're not necessarily slant rhymes if you were born in Yorkshire.

Bonus piece:

Why I hate haiku:
sententious endings do not
always imply depth.

[Ragamuffin_artist]

"The Communist Manifesto" by Marx and Engels:

The workers deserve to be free
From the evil class system, you see.
It’s time we create
A big-brother state
And fuck the goddamn bourgeoisie.



On a related note, though not a literary work, here's one by Christopher Hitchens:

There once was a fellow named Lenin
Who did two or three million men in
That's a lot to have done in
But where Lenin did one in
The bastard Joe Stalin did ten in.



By the way, my compliments in particular for "MacBeth." Nicely done!

MacBeth was a great Scottish laird,
Whose future, through witches, was bared.
He murdered the king,
But now here's the thing;
It turns out MacDuff was cesare'ed.

[beeny]

"Scrooge was filthy rich but mean,
Until a ghostly visitation he had seen.
And at dawn's first light,
He leapt to put it right,
Yearning to alter Tim's piteous funeral scene."


No offence but some of you haven't grasped the limerick's metre at all. It's very simple.

"There once was a Yorkshire moor,
Where a girl loved a lad who was poor.
But he turned her away
Til her heart, it did fray
She'll haunt him forever, that's sure!"

[jollytiddlywink]

No offence taken (a first for the Sinner, perhaps?)!
I was about to protest that given Dicken's notorious verbosity, fitting A Christmas Carol into a bursting-at-the-seams limerick was doing rather well, but then you provided such a neat condensation of Wuthering Heights that to do so would be silly. For the record, I don't think I have ever read anything that dragged on so interminably as Wuthering Heights (doesn't mean others cannot love and adore it, but it isn't to my taste!), so, well done beany!

[beeny]

I don't think I have ever read anything that dragged on so interminably as Wuthering Heights (doesn't mean others cannot love and adore it, but it isn't to my taste

I'll count it as a public service. If someone could summarise the entire LOTR for me, that would be great. Tom Bombadil makes my reading interest run cold every time

[jollytiddlywink]

The evil Sauron made a ring,
With which to rule everything,
By battle, stealth and magic,
His scheme ended tragic,
Into a volcano went the bling.

Hmm... there's a summary of LoTR!

[Ragamuffin_artist]

Putting Lord of the Rings into a limerick is quite the challenge. It's like the Dirac equation of linguistics. After spending more time on this than I'd like to admit, I submit the best I could come up with:

LOTR, part 1,2, and 3:

A hobbit left with a ring from Bag End
On a trip to Mount Doom with a friend.
After battles and trauma,
Et cetera, Et cetera,
The thing was destroyed, so “The End.”

[wild_quinine]

LOTR, part 1,2, and 3:

A hobbit left with a ring from Bag End
On a trip to Mount Doom with a friend.
After battles and trauma,
Et cetera, Et cetera,
The thing was destroyed, so “The End.”

The films are quite similar I assume,
Sam and Frodo push on through the gloom
The one thing that's new,
And a little bit blue:
How Sam interprets the phrase 'crack of doom'.

[Guest]

All due to a wizards request
a hobbit sets off on a quest
He gets in some scrapes
but with the help of his mates
Loses the weight of the ring off his chest.