Literary Nonsense refers to literature in which there are either nonsensical words, or the meaning does not make the slightest bit of sense. Two writers who are skilled in this subject are Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) and Ian Hurd. A self-portrait of Lewis Caroll, taken with assistance. ...

Lewis Carroll is most famous in Literary Nonsense for a poem he wrote called Jabberwocky, a part of a book he wrote titled Through the Looking-Glass . His other Literary Nonsense works include The Hunting of the Snark. See Lewis Carroll for more information. Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871) is a work of childrens literature by Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) It is the sequel to Alices Adventures in Wonderland, (although it makes no reference to its events). ... A self-portrait of Lewis Caroll, taken with assistance. ...

Ian Hurd is also a renowned Literary Nonsense writer, even though he is not as widely known as Lewis Carroll. His writings are famous for the fact that they directly state that they are nonsensical.

The phrase "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously" was coined by Noam Chomsky as an example of nonsense. The individual words make sense, and are arranged according to proper grammar, yet the result is still nonsense. The inspiration for this attempt at creating verbal nonsense came from the idea of contradiction and irrelevant or immaterial characteristics (an idea cannot have a dimension of color, green or otherwise), both of which would be sure to make a phrase meaningless. The phrase "the square root of Tuesday" operates on the latter principle. This principle is behind the inscrutability of the koan "What is the sound of one hand clapping?", as one hand would supposedly require another hand to complete the definition of clapping. Where S represents a grammatical sentence. ... Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is the Institute Professor Emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ... Grammar is the study of rules governing the use of language. ... Broadly speaking, a contradiction is an incompatibility between two or more statements, ideas, or actions. ... Color is an important part of the visual arts. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ...

Still, the human will to find meaning is strong; green ideas might be ideas associated with a Green party in politics, and colorless green ideas criticises some of them as uninspiring. For some, the human impulse to find meaning in what is actually random or nonsensical is what makes people find luck in coincidence, or believe in omens and divination. This article is about the green parties around the world. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Coincidence literally describes two or more events or entities occupying the same point in space or time, but colloquially means two or more events or entities possessing unexpected parallels, such as thinking about someone and then receiving an unexpected phone call from that person, when it is clear that there... This article is about Omens as divinatory portents. ... This man in Rhumsiki, Cameroon, tells the future by interpreting the changes in position of various objects as caused by a fresh-water crab through nggàm[1]. Divination is the practice of ascertaining information from supernatural sources. ...

The dreamlike language of James Joyce's "novel" Finnegans Wake sheds light on nonsense in a similar way; full of portmanteau words, it appears to be pregnant with multiple layers of meaning, but in many passages it is difficult to say whether any one person's interpretation of a text is the "intended" or "correct" one. There may in fact be no such interpretation. James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an expatriate Irish writer and poet, widely considered to be one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Look up Portmanteau word in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

 Nonsense verse represents a long tradition; its best known exponent is Edward Lear, author of The Owl and the Pussycat and hundreds of limericks. But according to Douglas R. Hofstadter, the crowning achievement in a nonsense limerick goes: 

There once was a man of St Bees

Who was stung in the hand by a wasp;

When asked, "Does it hurt?"

He replied, "Yes, it does,

I'm so glad it wasn't a hornet."

A "limerick" that does not rhyme and is not funny, which makes it funny. The above limerick was actually a parody of Lear's limericks by W. S. Gilbert. Nonsense verse is a form of poetry, normally composed for humorous effect, which is intentionally and overtly paradoxical, silly, witty, whimsical or just plain strange. ... Edward Lear, 1812-1888 Eagle Owl, Edward Lear, 1837 Another Edward Lear owl, in his more familiar style Edward Lear (12 May 1812 - 29 January 1888) was an artist, illustrator and writer known for his nonsensical poetry and his limericks, a form which he popularised. ... A limerick is a short, often humorous and ribald poem developed to a very specific structure. ... Douglas Richard Hofstadter (born February 15, 1945) is an American academic. ... Humour or humor is the ability or quality of people, objects, or situations to evoke feelings of amusement in other people. ... In contemporary usage, parody is a form of satire that imitates another work of art in order to ridicule it. ... Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (November 18, 1836 – May 29, 1911) was a British dramatist and librettist best known for his operatic collaborations with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan. ...

Nonsense verse represents a tradition older than Lear; the nursery rhyme Hey Diddle Diddle is also a sort of nonsense verse. There are also some things which appear to nonsense verse, but actually are not, such as the popular 40's song "Mairzey Doats".[1] A nursery rhyme is a traditional song or poem taught to young children, originally in the nursery. ... Hey Diddle Diddle is a nursery rhyme. ...

Lines of nonsense frequently figure in the refrains of folksongs. Nonsense riddles and knock-knock jokes are seen often. Lewis Carroll, seeking a nonsense riddle, once posed the question How is a raven like a writing desk? But someone answered him, Because Poe wrote on both. However there are different answers. A refrain (from the Old French refraindre to repeat, likely from Vulgar Latin refringere) is the line or lines that are repeated in music or in verse; the chorus of a song. ... Folk music, in the original sense of the term, is music by and of the people. ... A riddle is a form of word puzzle designed to test someones ingenuity in arriving at its solution. ... The knock-knock joke is a type of joke, probably the best-known format of the pun, and is a time-honoured call and answer exercise. ... A self-portrait of Lewis Caroll, taken with assistance. ... This daguerreotype of Poe was taken less than a year before his death at the age of 40. ...

In the field of Art, the Dada movement created nonsense art as an expression of disaffection with art and a society that seemed unavoidably addicted to the insanity of war. Venus de Milo exhibited in the Louvre museum, France. ... Cover of the first edition of the publication, Dada. ...