What is in example of pun in poetry?
Question by katelynnlassalle: What is in example of pun in poetry?
Pun- a play on words that relies on a word’s having more than one meaning or sounding like another word. Puns have serious literary uses, but since the eighteenth century, puns have been used most pureply for humorous effect.
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2 Responses to What is in example of pun in poetry?
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I can’t think of any examples offhand.
Tutor
July 5, 2013 at 11:19 pm
Poetic puns:
Some of Shakespeare’s puns raise more serious questions about how language, and poetry, operates. When Touchstone remarks in As You Like It, that “the truest poetry is the most feigning,” he quibbles between the verbs “to feign,” meaning to fake or pretend, and “to fain,” to desire or wish for something. His comment, on the face of it a paradox, since something cannot be true and feigning at the same time, opens up a whole series of questions about poetry.
Does he mean that feigning is the only way to a higher truth? That all poetry is made of lies? That true poetry comes from a lover’s deepest desires? That love poetry is deceitful, and provides a way to satisfy one’s desires under a pretence of love? From a simple pun on two words that sound the same when recited by a clown, Shakespeare asks us searching questions about art.
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Pun-filled Poetry:
VIBRAM SOUL
Wingtips, loafers, the odd oxford – in twos,
My feet are indentured foreigners in mere shoes.
They miss their native tongue of boots from The Hike,
Miss smelling of bee’s wax, of moleskin, of sweat and the like.
So I slip on the cottons, and then the wool blends,
And let my soles take me to where my soul mends…
Out of the office and through the choked lots,
And into the woods where I can think my own thoughts.
Yet I need not “go boldly where none has before” –
(When I take such strolls, my wife gets quite sore).
Just worn trails with quick rises and slow bends,
Such places cauterize my nerves on their ends.
I leave only foot prints, but take photographs,
And step to the side so that others may pass.
I catch wind of the flowers and pass notes to the birds,
And whisper a small prayer to see elk in great herds.
I cool in the streams and warm on the rocks,
Knowing it’s pedestrian to take such a walk, but
Don’t need you to tell me, I’m proof of my own –
Even though there’s no roof, it still feels like home.
Joel M. Lippert
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Puns with Mary Had a Little Lamb:
Mary had a little lamb,
The news made every front page,
With pictures of her being taken to jail,
Cause you see, he was under age.
~ Gunjan
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Mary had a little lamb,
The Midwife died of Shock !
~~~~~~~~~
Mary had a little lamb,
You’ve heard this tale before
But did you know she passed her plate
and had a little more!
~~~~~~~~~~~
Mary had a little lamb
Whose fleece was black as soot
And into Mary’s little lap
His sooty foot he put!
Charlie, we mustn’t stop here
The rest of the tale must be tol’
Astronomers gather each year
To Study Mary’s Black Hole!
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For more punny rhymes, try these links:
http://www.workinghumor.com/poems/punny_rhymes02.shtml
http://www.workinghumor.com/poems/punny_rhymes03.shtml
http://www.workinghumor.com/poems/punny_rhymes04.shtml
http://www.workinghumor.com/poems/rhyming_tales.shtml
http://www.workinghumor.com/poems/rhyming_tales02.shtml
LAlawMedMBA
July 5, 2013 at 11:57 pm