13-05-2025
The English talent for nonsense
From The Times, May 14, 1925M Émile Cammaerts, the Belgian poet, lectured last night at Queen's College, London, on 'The Poetry of Nonsense', in aid of the extension appeal fund of the college. Prince Reginald de Croy presided.M Cammaerts said the English nonsense poetry was not only very remarkable poetry, but was of the essence of poetry, and had often been treated far too superciliously by the critics. They might take first of all that classic among nursery rhymes, 'Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle'. Here was not only a delightful pageant of absurdity and characteristic figures, but also a new kind of poetry and technique. One test to which a poem was generally submitted was as to whether the rhymes
