Edward Lear’s Bittersweet Attempt: Being Seen as a Person Alone in a Landscape — The Dong with a Luminous Nose

Abstract

Edward Lear left a rich and precious poetic legacy from the Victorian Age even though accompanied by illness, loneliness, and melancholy throughout his life. Before nearly one hundred years, scholars have pointed out how Lear’s subject differed from other nonsense verse writers, as well as the autobiographical elements of his poems. But this self-writing in the form of nonsense is never straightforward. It is often confusing whether Lear’s poems are meant to take people to the land of nonsense to wander or explore, hoping that people will feel the same pleasure and spiritual support in nonsense as he does himself, or whether he wants people to see him calling out for cares and hopes, to see his own desires, frustrations and sorrows. Based on The Dong with a Luminous Nose, this article examines and explains how the Dong is a symbol of Lear’s self. Lear projects his suffering from loneliness and unrequited love and his eccentric lifelong sense of exile into this poem; yet at the same time satisfies some of his desires, his quest for the aesthetic of sadness, his own idealism and his deeply hidden histrionic personality. This article fully integrates Lear’s biography, his status as a landscape painter and his creative talents brought about by his illnesses, and draws to the conclusion that this poem is Lear’s bittersweet attempt to be seen as a person alone in a landscape.