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  • Five Ways and One of Looking at Mother Goose
  • Wilson Currin Snipes (bio)

In the following remarks I propose to discuss briefly five ways of approaching the literary work of a single author. Each approach, to simplify the difference among the approaches, is governed by a central question:

  1. 1. The Biographical Approach: what kind of person was or is the artist?

  2. 2. The Socio-cultural Approach: what are the characteristics of the age?

  3. 3. The Humanistic Approach: what are the ethical qualities of the literary work?

  4. 4. The Formalist Approach: what is the character of the work of art itself?

  5. 5. The Psychological-Psychoanalytic Approach: what is the psychic life of the artist?

Obviously these questions are oversimplifications of the critical views represented, but they are indicative of the critical approaches of many contemporary, practicing critics. They are stances people adopt when they read literature seriously as literature. Now let's take a look at the five in theory and in application to Mother Goose.

I. The Biographical Approach

Many of us studied literature through what is commonly described as the biographical approach. E. M. W. Tillyard in "The Personal Heresy" states this position: "I believe we read Keats in some measure because his poetry gives a version of a remarkable personality of which another version is his life. " I recall seeing a biography of Picasso that illustrates Tillyard's remarks: on the top of each page one could see the art work Picasso produced at a particular time; on the bottom of each page in prose was a description of what Picasso was doing in his daily life besides painting: his friends, mistresses, social and political life. The primary characteristic of this approach is that we study the work of art in the context of the artist's development. Hence, we study Emerson's "Compensation" essay in terms of Emerson's development. We are interested in the man Emerson in relation to the art of a man named Emerson.

The biographical critic would ask: What kind of person was Mrs. Goose, the author of the "Mother Goose Rhymes" ? Of course we should be better able to answer the question had Mrs. Goose left an autobiography, a diary, a few letters , or had her friends left Memoirs of Mother Goose, or Mother Goose's Trip to Banbury Cross, but even without these the biographical critic reads Mrs. [End Page 98] Goose's poems biographically. Thus the biographical critic can say that Mrs. Goose was a village busy-body, one who knew many intimate details of the life of her community (based on Mrs. Goose's detailed knowledge of Jack Horner, Mrs. McShuttle, Doctor Foster, Jack and Mrs. Sprat, Old Mother Hubbard, and Simple Simon). She liked children: witness her acquaintance with Lucy Lockert, Kitty Fisher, Miss Muffett, Georgie Porgie, Mary, Bo-Peep, Little Boy Blue, and others. She had a special interest in animals—kittens, mice, donkeys, rats, sheep, black hens, dogs, robin redbreasts. She followed some questionable eating habits "pease porridge nine days old"; she had a strong aversion to stealing—remember the Knave of Hearts who "after being beaten full sore, vowed he'd steal no more. " Some biographical critics argue she had strong moral qualities. She would not lend Dapple-Gray again to a woman who whipped him, slashed him, and rode him through the mire. She objected to those who washed clothes on Saturday—"Oh, they are sluts indeed." In "Hush-A-Bye" Mrs. Goose said, "Hush-a-bye, baby, daddy is near; mamma is a lady, and that's very clear." Other critics have argued that Mrs. Goose was highly immoral. Remember "There was an old woman who lived in a shoe, she had so many children she didn't know what to do. " Certainly Mrs. Goose loved the seasons of the year. In "The Year" she speaks of April as a time that "brings the primrose sweet, scatters daisies at our feet." Or "Fresh October brings the pheasant, then to gather nuts is pleasant." Or, to show Mrs. Goose's lightness, she described the seasons as follows:

Spring is showery, flowery, bowery;Summer: hoppy, croppy, poppy;Autumn: wheezy, sneezy, freezy;Winter: slippy, drippy, nippy...

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