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Mother Goose is a Goth: A Found Poem
Concerned that there’s too much violence in children’s movies, TV, video games and online? Maybe the problem is there’s not enough.
From The Annotated Mother Goose, eds. William S. Baring-Gould & Ceil Baring-Gould, Bramhall House, 1962:
“…in 1952 Geoffrey Handley-Taylor of Manchester, England, published a brief biography of the literature of nursery rhyme reform in which he wrote that:
“The average collection of 200 traditional nursery rhymes contains approximately 100 rhymes which personify all that is glorious and ideal for the child. Unfortunately, the remaining 100 rhymes harbour unsavoury elements. The incidents listed below occur in the average collection and may be accepted as a reasonably conservative estimate based on a general survey of this type of literature.
“8 allusions to murder (unclassified),
2 cases of choking to death,
1 case of death by devouring,
1 case of cutting a human being in half,
1 case of decapitation,
1 case of death by squeezing,
1 case of death by shrivelling,
1 case of death by starvation,
1 case of boiling to death,
1 case of death by hanging,
1 case of death by drowning,
4 cases of killing domestic animals,
1 case of body snatching,
21 cases of death (unclassified),
7 cases relating to the severing of limbs,
1 case of the desire to have a limb severed,
2 cases of self-inflicted injury,
4 cases relating to the breaking of limbs,
1 allusion to a bleeding heart,
1 case of devouring human flesh,
5 threats of death,
1 case of kidnapping,
12 cases of torment and cruelty to human beings and animals,
8 cases of whipping and lashing,
3 allusions to blood,
14 cases of stealing and general dishonesty,
15 allusions to maimed human beings and animals
1 allusion to undertakers,
2 allusions to graves,
23 cases of physical violence (unclassified),
1 case of lunacy,
16 allusions to misery and sorrow,
1 case of drunkenness,
4 cases of cursing,
1 allusion to marriage as a form of death,
1 case of scorning the blind,
1 case of scorning prayer,
9 cases of children being lost or abandoned,
2 cases of house burning,
9 allusions to poverty and want,
5 allusions to quarrelling,
2 cases of unlawful imprisonment,
2 cases of racial discrimination.
“Expressions of fear, weeping, moans of anguish, biting, pain and evidence of supreme selfishness may be found in almost every other page.”
Posted in Group Blog, Poems on Sunday, May 4th, 2008 by Daisy Fried.
Comments (7)
Dear Daisy,
Thanks for this post! I do think that fairy tales partially act as a way for children, especially female children, to think through and deal with the violences and dangers of the world. I know I loved my Andrew Lang “Fairy Books” – Crimson, Olive, etc – as a kid way more than all the safe/grimly positive “children’s books” from the seventies.
It was a revelation when I went to college that even those stories had been sanitized for children, and when I read some of the original versions of the stories (“Little Red Cap” being one of the more disturbing) well, they made a lot more sense.
“My Brother is Being Arrested Again” is a book I keep recommending to friends.
Best,
Jeannine
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Inexplicably missing from the Baring-Gould; I found it in 2 other collections as an adult:
A man of words and not of deeds
Is like a garden full of weeds,
And when the weeds begin to grow
It’s like a garden full of snow,
And when the snow begins to fall
It’s like a bird upon the wall,
And when the bird away does fly
It’s like a shipwreck in the sky,
And when the sky begins to roar
It’s like a lion at your door,
And when your door begins to crack
It’s like a stick across your back,
And when your back begins to smart
It’s like a penknife in your heart,
And when your heart begins to bleed
Your dead, and dead, and dead — indeed.
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Another excellent post from a consistently captivating writer. Geoffrey Handley-Taylor’s statistical overview laid me out in the floor with laughter.
Rather than policing fantasies, and in addition to the usual subjects, might we improve our educational system by developing curriculum in the following modest subjects from grade K through the end of middle school:
Have a beautiful day.
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Unfortunately, people have been trying to sanitize children’s stories and fairy tales for year — typically by people who miss the point of the tales. Political correctness has run amuck in this area for a long time, first among conservatives, and now among the Left (with PC). I’ve read Mother Goose that was turned into Christian propaganda (thus sanitizing it and, ironically, eliminating the morals of the stories) and politically correct versions of fairy tales which essentially do the same thing. I have been told by German friends that the Grimm’s Fairy Tales we have are both made incomplete and sanitized by the translators (one story I have yet to find by them is the one about the girl told not to play with matches, and when she does, she burns herself and her house up). Fairy tales are intended to educate. And, yes, fear does educate (why else would you go to watch horror movies or get on a roller coaster?).
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Death by shrivelling? Somehow that seems like the worst way to go.
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Anonymous poem: “The Little Turtle” I believe this poem/rhyme belongs to poet Vachel Lindsay [1879-1931] published in 1923. Prior to the poem yjese words are written:
“A Recitation for Martha Wakefield, Three Years Old”
Regards, Vonnie
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Jonathan–Are you the Philadelphia (former?) dance critic/poet? If so, I think we were on a panel together once, but I forget what it was on–it was a looooong time ago. Best, Daisy
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