FOREWORD ix
women. Others should perhaps also be so marked， but the infor-
mation is lacking. Women do not often like bawdy limericks， in
which they generally figure as both villain and victim. A few
disorganized females have been found in recent years， however，
willing to match the standard cruel and castratory anti-woman
limericks with equally cruel and castratory anti-man limericks of
their own concocting.
One further depressing note. Despite the presumed New
Freedom since the late i96o s， at least as to sex (the hatches are
down tight on political freedom these years， which may be why
they are easing up a little on the sex?) almost all the collectors and
all but three of the original limerick poets have urgently insisted
that their true names not be published. Sometimes with a panicky
insistence that rather surprises one in this \"postlapsarian world (as
Dr. Rayna Green has called it) deluged with X-rated films，
bottomless bars， and leather shops.\" Meanwhile， perfectly lunatic
fantasy sadism is shamelessly unleashed on an international scale
in all the \"media arts，\" as mass brainwashing for the genocides
to come -- when the food runs short.
One wonders sometimes why certain limerick fanciers so
enthusiastically write， recite， and circulate the rhymes of which，
in the end， they are so ashamed. One part of the explanation is
doubtless the fact that a surprisingly large percentage of limerick
specialists -- at least those I have met or heard of - are of the
homosexual persuasion. Norman Douglas， for one， the Grand
(Dirty) Old Man of the limerick art， expressed neither shame nor
shyness about his psychosexual peculiarity， as his courageously
signed volume Some Limericks (1928) tranquilly displays on
many a page. Not every limerick poet， even today， dares to
parade such studied forthrightness. Yet one of the problems of
editing the present volume has been keeping the new \"Gay
Liberation\" limericks of the t96o s and since down to a reasonable
proportion of the text， while diminishing somewhat the gossipy
bitchiness to which they are prone， especially the Oedipal ten-
|
内容加载中，请稍后...
商品评论（0条）