Edinburgh Companion to Nonsense

Anna Barton is Professor of Nineteenth-Century Literature at the University of Sheffield. Previous publications include, The Edinburgh Companion to Nonsense (with James Williams) (2021), Nineteenth-Century Poetry and Liberal Though: Forms of Freedom (2017), In Memoriam: A Reading Guide (2012) and Tennyson’s Name: Identity and Responsibility in the Poetry of Alfred, Lord Tennyson (2008). James Williams is a Senior Lecturer in English at the University of York. He is the author of Edward Lear (Liverpool University Press, 2018) and co-editor, with Matthew Bevis, of Edward Lear and the Play of Poetry (OUP, 2016). He has published articles on Alfred Tennyson, Samuel Beckett, Lewis Carroll, and Victorian comic verse.

• AcknowledgementsList of IllustrationsIntroduction: Companionable Nonsense - Anna Barton and James WilliamsPart I: Notes towards a History of English Nonsense1. Buba, Blictrix, Bufbaf: Medieval Theory and Practice of Nonsense - Jordan Kirk2. ‘The Best Fooling’: Every Man Out of His Humour, Twelfth Night, and Early Modern English Nonsense Games - Rebecca Fall3. Nonsense in the Age of Reason - Freya Johnston4. ‘The Light of Sense | Goes Out’: Romantic Poetry and Victorian Nonsense Poetry - Peter Swaab5. Victorian Nonsense and Its Kinships - Martin Dubois6. Shady Pleasures: Modernist Nonsense - Noreen Masud7. Mid-Century Nonsense and Destructive Mockery - Adam PiettePart II: Global Nonsenses8. In Search of Ancient Greek Nonsense - Sara Chiarini9. Traditional Moorings, Modern Practices: Indian Literary Nonsense - Sumanyu Satpathy10. Signs and Wonders: Two Approaches to Nonsense in Russia - Jamie Rann11. ‘What’s the French for fiddle-de-dee?’: Nonsense in French - Alexandra Lukes12. Italian Nonsense: Tradition, Translation, Translocation, Transcodification (and a Trinity) - Alessandro GiammeiPart III: Contexts and Connections13. English ‘hibber-gibber’ and the ‘jargon of France’: Rabelaisian Nonsense in Translation - Hugh Roberts14. Musical Foundations of Nonsense - Michael Heyman15. Doubtful Girls and Silly Women: Nonsense and Gender - Anna Barton16. Queer Nonsense: Query? - Hugh Haughton17. Humans, and Other Nonsense Animals - Cassie Westwood18. Nonsense Among the Philosophers - Michael Potter19. ‘Word beyond Speech’: Nonsense and the Sacred - James Williams Notes on Contributors

This is the most capacious and thought-provoking volume of essays on nonsense yet published. Barton and Williams’s animating question - "What kinds of things can we say or feel when we make nonsense that we cannot when we make sense?'' - can be felt throughout the book as it moves appealingly across periods and continents. The Edinburgh Companion to Nonsense is a brilliant study of the many lives that nonsense can live. It will become a seminal collection.