Satirical Limerick
Assignment
On a separate piece of paper, write a satirical
limerick or verse or verses about someone or a type of person. It is a good
idea to choose someone in public life. You should give your character a
fictional, satirical name if it is about someone we know here at Jackson Creek.
Remember, characteristics of satire include:
1.
People who are extreme or obsessive are usually
subjects of satire. They take themselves seriously and don’t realize they are
funny.
2. The satirist further exaggerates their extreme behavior or ideas.
3. Satire is criticism through humor, sometimes gentle and sometimes savage.
4. Laughter reduces the power or influence of the person or idea.
5. A satirist cannot be too angry with the subject; he or she must remain objective.
If you choose to write a limerick, remember it
has five lines, with a rhyme scheme of:
a
a
b
b
a
Examples are on the back of this page.
A professor who flunked his whole class
Was arrested for having the brass,
In this modern milieu,
To adhere to the view:
"If you don't do the work, you don't pass."
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.
The limerick
packs laughs anatomical
Into space that is quite economical.
But the good ones I've seen
So seldom are clean -
And the clean ones so seldom are comical.
The limerick's
callous and crude,
Its morals distressingly lewd;
It's not worth the reading
By persons of breeding -
It's designed for us vulgar and rude.
The limerick is
furtive and mean;
You must keep her in close quarantine,
Or she sneaks to the slums
And promptly becomes
Disorderly, drunk and obscene.
There once was a
floppy scarecrow,
Companion of Dorothy and Toto.
"I'm really not vain,
But I must have a brain,
So off to the wizard I'll go!"
There was a young
woman named Bright
Whose speed was much faster than light.
She set out one day
In a relative way,
And returned on the previous night.
There once was an
old man of Esser,
Whose knowledge grew lesser and lesser,
It at last grew so small
He knew nothing at all,
And now he's a college professor.