Great Panjandrum Himself

A masterpiece of deliberate nonsense from the 18th century's most irreverent wit. Samuel Foote, the playwright who lost a leg to gout and replaced it with wooden one he famously insured for £40,000, gave the world 'The Great Panjandrum' - a poem so magnificently absurd it defies comprehension while somehow demanding to be read aloud. The piece began as a wager: Foote claimed he could compose more nonsensical nonsense than anyone could make sense of sense. What emerged was a cascade of portmanteau words, impossible imagery, and rhythmic gibberish that somehow achieves the impossible - it sounds like it should mean something profound. 'Panjandrum' entered the English language as a word for a pretentious, self-important official, which is perhaps the final joke. This is language having a magnificent argument with itself, a celebration of sound over sense that remains wildly funny nearly three centuries later.