Literary notes about doggerel (AI summary)
The term "doggerel" in literature typically refers to verses marked by their rough, unsophisticated quality and a tendency toward triviality or crude humor. Early writers sometimes used doggerel to mock or belittle subjects, as seen when Frazer describes "scrawled doggerel verses" of ridicule [1]. In other works, figures like Alexander Pope and Thomas Jefferson suggest that doggerel, with its forced rhymes and simplicity, appeals more to the unrefined tastes of the ignorant [2, 3, 4, 5]. Meanwhile, literary critics have lamented its pervasive influence in works ranging from historical chronicles to satirical pieces that even creep into casual conversation [6, 7, 8, 9]. Although at times a jovial or playful tone might be inferred from its usage—as with Mickiewicz's "short doggerel rimes" [10]—the overall critical consensus is that doggerel often epitomizes a lack of genuine poetic merit, being employed both for humorous effect and as a dismissive label for substandard poetry [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16].
- Attached to it is a label on which are scrawled doggerel verses in ridicule of the man on whose land the Straw-bull is set up.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer - He is remembered as the part author of a doggerel version of the Psalms.
— from The Rape of the Lock, and Other Poems by Alexander Pope - 11 I must subjoin to this last kind of Wit the double Rhymes, which are used in Doggerel Poetry, and generally applauded by ignorant Readers.
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson - Pope had good reason to fear that the malice of his enemies might not be content to stop with abusive doggerel.
— from The Rape of the Lock, and Other Poems by Alexander Pope - 11 I must subjoin to this last kind of Wit the double Rhymes, which are used in Doggerel Poetry, and generally applauded by ignorant Readers.
— from The Spectator, Volume 1 by Joseph Addison and Sir Richard Steele - A person conversing with him occasionally found himself addressed in rhyming couplets, as if, of their own accord, his words would run into doggerel.
— from Toronto of Old by Henry Scadding - All these early plays were written, for the most part, in a mingling of prose and wretched doggerel, and add nothing to our literature.
— from English Literature by William J. Long - (3) Riming Chronicles, i.e. history in doggerel verse, like Layamon's Brut .
— from English Literature by William J. Long - He wrote doggerel rhymes of history which took the place of Mother Goose.
— from Etiquette by Emily Post - His short doggerel rimes, which breathe a jovial gaiety, were long extremely popular.
— from Pan Tadeusz; or, The last foray in Lithuania by Adam Mickiewicz - D'Urfey's Tales , on the other hand, published in 1704 and 1706, were collections of dull and obscene doggerel by a wretched poet.
— from The Rape of the Lock, and Other Poems by Alexander Pope - The popular ridicule of Puritanism in burlesque and doggerel is best exemplified in Butler's Hudibras .
— from English Literature by William J. Long - Swift's poems, though vigorous and original (like Defoe's, of the same period), are generally satirical, often coarse, and seldom rise above doggerel.
— from English Literature by William J. Long - Being questioned whiles what were these nine defaults and having put them into doggerel rhyme, he would answer, 'I will tell you.
— from The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio by Giovanni Boccaccio - “I think too that doggerel, ‘A Noble Personality,’ is the most utter trash possible, and it couldn’t have been written by Herzen.”
— from The possessed : by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - They have told me since that I was singing some insane doggerel about “The Last Man Left Alive!
— from The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
