Since its first appearance in the Victorian Period, Nonsense has been considered a mere source of amusement and laughter. It has been classified as another children's literary genre, something to be used only to entertain them. It has always been considered meaningless and something which does not contribute to children's education. However, behind the laughter that nonsense provokes, there might be some hidden meaning. Underneath all its laughter and its amusing rhetoric, there can be found some of the most influential theories of Psychoanalysis and Existentialist philosophy. To illustrate this, I will analyse some of the texts in Edward Lear's Book of Nonsense (1846) following the Freudian theories of the Oedipal Complex, The Unheimlich and the idea of the doppelgänger among others. I will also explore Lear's work following the existentialist line of thought of Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche, focusing in the concept of nihilism. By doing this, I aim at demonstrating how this genre has not been fairly labelled, and it should belong to 'higher literature'. In addition, I aim at proving that it is a powerful source of meaning and answers to most of human's questions and preoccupations
