Question

What element of literary nonsense is present in the following excerpt from Carl Sandburg's "How the Animals Lost Their Tails and Got Them Back Traveling from Philadelphia to Medicine Hat"?

He was from Massachusetts, born near Chappaquiddick, this old flongboo, and he lived there in a horse chestnut tree six feet thick halfway between South Hadley and Northampton. And at night, before he lost his tail, he lighted up the big hollow cave inside the horse chestnut tree with his yellow torch of a tail

1)using only imaginary animals and places

2)combining imaginary animals and real places

3)writing by only using sound devices

4)eliminating all sound devices from writing

Answer 1

The best answer is 2: combining imaginary animals and real places. Chappaquiddick is actually a real place in Massachusetts, but a flongboo is not a real animal. 

Answer 2

2) combining imaginary animals and real places

When we look at the excerpt, we can see that Carl Sandburg mentions an animal that is not real—an old flongboo.  However, the places he mentions (Massachusetts, Chappaquiddick, South Hadley, and Northampton) are all real places.  You can even take it a bit further and verify the places of a cave and within a chestnut tree as caves and chestnut trees are real.