Mother Goose

1) "The imaginary author of Mother Goose's Tales, a collection of nursery rhymes first published in London in the 18th century." (Definition by American Heritage online dictionary.)

2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Goose (Wiki's Mother Goose)

3) http://www.wisegeek.com/who-is-mother-goose.htm (Wisegeek's Mother Goose)

4) Mother Goose: A Scholarly Exploration http://eclipse.rutgers.edu/goose/

5) The Official Home of the Mother Goose Society http://www.librarysupport.net/mothergoosesociety/

Finally my personal favorite Mother Goose rhyme:

Hey! diddle, diddle,

The cat and the fiddle,

The cow jumped over the moon;

The little dog laughed

To see such sport,

And the dish ran away with the spoon.

My Book and Heart Shall Never Part

My most vivid memory of the movie, although rather redundant considering all of the information involved within the movie it self, was the section that Dr. Sexson and his wife retold the story of the infamous "House that Jack Built" by notorious Mother Goose.

This is the house that Jack built.
This is the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.
This is the rat,
That ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.
This is the cat,
That killed the rat,
That ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.
This is the dog,
That worried the cat,
That killed the rat,
That ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.
This is the cow with the crumpled horn,
That tossed the dog,
That worried the cat,
That killed the rat,
That ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.
This is the maiden all forlorn,
That milked the cow with the crumpled horn,
That tossed the dog,
That worried the cat,
That killed the rat,
That ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.
This is the man all tattered and torn,
That kissed the maiden all forlorn,
That milked the cow with the crumpled horn,
That tossed the dog,
That worried the cat,
That killed the rat,
That ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.
This is the priest all shaven and shorn,
That married the man all tattered and torn,
That kissed the maiden all forlorn,
That milked the cow with the crumpled horn,
That tossed the dog,
That worried the cat,
That killed the rat,
That ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.
This is the cock that crowed in the morn,
That waked the priest all shaven and shorn,
That married the man all tattered and torn,
That kissed the maiden all forlorn,
That milked the cow with the crumpled horn,
That tossed the dog,
That worried the cat,
That killed the rat,
That ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.
This is the farmer sowing his corn,
That kept the cock that crowed in the morn,
That waked the priest all shaven and shorn,
That married the man all tattered and torn,
That kissed the maiden all forlorn,
That milked the cow with the crumpled horn,
That tossed the dog,
That worried the cat,
That killed the rat,
That ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.

But who is Mother Goose?????.......

Cinderella's Happy Ending...What a JOKE!!!!

If it wasn’t for me that girl would be lost.
She would never have received the goods that cost.
Her serenity and grace was found through me,
If not for my magic, she still would be no better then a flea.

Nothing is priceless in this world of wonder.
That girl would be a maid, her life in sunder.
No queenly serenity for this fairy god mother.
I’m still invisible, a mouse in the corner.

Beauty is not something all is born with.
Wit, charm, and congenial perfection are myth.
Never believe a cindertail to become royalty,
Without the help of fairy god parents, like me.

This twisted moral to Cinderella is from the point of view of the under appreciated view point of the fairy god mother. What do you think?

Love that Moves the Sun and Planets

Possibly Psyche's love of love, but in my case it would be Andy! We are high school sweethearts! But our story is not a fairy tale, yet! There have been numerous bumps in the road with no pebbles or bread crumbs to "get back" but we would be boring without them! Stability in life is boring! My love that moves the sun and planets...

Hans My Hedgehog

-Children are never lost...Nothing is Ever LOST!!!

Motif's we've heard before:

1) East of the Sun West of the Moon

2) Book of Judge

3) Jeptha's daughter

4) Rash promises

5) Beauty and the Beast (transformations of the beast

6) The number 3 (3 shoes, 3 promises, 3 nights.)

7) Sacrificial child for father (the passing of property)

8) Demeter and Persephone

9) Marriage is abduction

10) Husband and wife can't have children

11) Monster baby

12) Wife doesn't care what she has

13) Relationship between father and child (Oedipus stories)

14) One year and one day or "formulas"

15) Isolation (the black sheep)

16) Relationship between human and animal

17) Beast marriage

Dude you can't have her, but here you go....

Mythology and References in our Fairy Tales: (At a very small glance!)

1) Relationship of the mother and daughter

-Demeter and Persephone

2) Men are stupid, women are smart

-The Triple Goddess, which also represents "Cinderella". Maiden, mother, crone...

3) Aladdin's Genie- "I'm outta here, I'm history."

-Wait, no, I'm mythology...

4) Beauty and the Beast + Cupid and Psyche

-Can't forget about Hans My Hedgehog!
-Also Pygmalion

5) Oedipus Rex

-The Lion King

Security Blanket = Story Time

When I was little, my mom read to me constantly! However, the stories she read were not just fairy tales to me. I was an only child, which made me develop a rather large imagination. I had two half-brothers, but they were much older then me. Therefore, they were never really in the house when I was in my storytelling prime. I had no one to share things with and that led to me getting sick of all my toys sooner then most kids. My stuffed animals had pretty short shelf lives, and I began to take different things to bed with me at night. Those things, I will add, became my books. I did not only become instantly soothed with the stories, but the books themselves. My array of children's books such as When Emily Woke Up Angry, Pickle Things (my all time favorite), and many others, became my bed time companions. The books were physically my security blanket. It must have been the musty scent of the paperbacks, or maybe the chemical aroma of the ink on the page, but I would drift away into dream land every night with a hard rigid book wrapped in my arms. (Strange isn't it!!!!!) I have found through experiences like these that books are not just crucial to this world for their stories, but by their importance of just being there. Books, in a physical sense, represent an innate presence of knowledge. Without this presence, our culture would be strictly oratorical. We would be stuck in the stone age. A world without books would be COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!!!!!!! (If I may speak so mundanely.)

The Granite Gentleman: Displaced Myth

At the bottom, not in my ship’s bay,
Salvage me now; I’m lost to this day.
Lightening bolts struck, in the abyss
I shall eternally stay in blue-azure bliss.

What shall I do in the depths of this land?
When all I have to look at is sand?
Nobody here to catch my rustic everlasting stare,
That, I don’t know if I can bear…

She rushes by, and envies my chiseled state
Could she want to be my mate?
How could we though, I’m made of rock,
And she of rosy flesh, born from royal stock.

She see’s me though, and plants me well.
Crimson flora surrounds me in her private cell,
She comes here often to think of other places,
Where people walk, and smile at familiar faces.

I heard her talking once, of birds in the trees.
She always sighed, mimicked them floating in the breeze.
At fifteen she could go to view,
Upon the arrival of the midnight dew.

Because she was the youngest of them all,
She waited for all five to go and fall.
The first fell in love with the city lights and sparkling night skies,
The second basked in the early dawn’s sunrise.

Sister three frolicked in the woods and hills.
Sister four kept her distance, she wasn’t much for thrills.
Sister five arose in the bitter cold.
She loved the floating diamond molds.

As storms swept over their heads,
Their world cluttered with fallen dead.
To ease them into their next life,
They sang sweetly to calm the men’s deathly strife.

My love, however, stayed behind.
She cried being so young and delicate of mind.
As soon as I am fifteen years of age,
I will ascend to the top of the great blue sage.

Her grandmother dressed her beautiful and fair,
She was stunning with white lilies in her hair.
My love did not much care for her new look.
She’d rather pick a rose to wear from my place in her flowery nook.

She bid farewell and kissed me goodbye.
I missed her deeply already, but somehow couldn’t cry.
I sat alone and waited for her to come back.
When she did, I would be back on track.

I wish I was with her when she made her save.
Something happed to her with my twin brother, that filthy nave.
When she came back she asked me to be him.
The thought of her loving him made me grim.

My mind was running mach five,
For the life of me I could not come alive.
I stood there in a frozen slate.
Motionless and mute was my fate.

I tried to chase her, uproot from the flower trap,
She was already gone to see the succubus in her death cap.
A rush of foamy dust spat in my face.
She eagerly left to that dangerous place.

She’s gone forever now.
A look of loneliness sits upon my brow.
Where did she go, my darling love?
Perhaps to places above as a beautiful white sea dove?

At the bottom, not in my ship’s bay,
Salvage me now; I’m lost to this day.
Lightening bolts struck, in the abyss
I shall eternally stay lonely in this blue-azure bliss.

~ A poem based on Hans Christian Anderson’s, “The Little Mermaid.” From the point of view of the statue of the prince. Copyright of Emily Lewis, 2008. :)

Catching Up from weeks of Slacking!!!!!

Additional Texts to Enrich Children's Classical Literature:
The Feminine in Fairy Tales
From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers
Fairy Tales and After: From Snow White to E.B. White
Little Red Riding Hood Unlocked
Peppers at the Gates of Dawn: The Wisdom of Children's Literature
Iona and Peter Opi: The Classic Fairy Tale
Alice in Wonderland
Cinderella A Casebook
Little Red Riding Hood
Don't Tell the Grown-ups

Throughout this class, I have become obsessed with the idea of there being "no original" story. I have carried on my obsession with fairy tales into another class, English 339, where I will be creating a multi genre project on the unique fascination of Fairy Tales and the world. While conferencing with my professor in our weekly writing groups, she mentioned a book that conveyed that there are only seven types of plots in the entire literature world. This caught my attention, therefore, I looked it up on the world wide web. The website that I found is most interesting! This website gives us a narrow perspective on a book by Christopher Booker called, The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories. VERY INTERESTING STUFF!!!!!
URL: http://fiction-plots-pacing.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_seven_basic_plots

Children, Nature, Books....

What is a child?
When I think back to my child hood, I think of many things. I was a free spirit with an endless imagination. My imaginary friends and I would play to no end. Our sense of time was inexistent. At this time, my mind was not clouded with worry of the vast problems within the clutches of humanity. I was able to jump into the fairy tales I read, with no doubt that my life might someday reflect one of those fairy tales. It was easy to be the Little Mermaid from Walt Disney. I was not at all concerned with turning into sea foam. Childhood then is exemplified by innocent carelessness, worry free dreaming, and the unawareness of the truths of human nature.

What is nature?
Nature is not just the trees, the birds, the air we breathe; the grass we lay upon…Nature is a reference to much more than that. Nature can be an infinite amount of things that we are completely unaware of. Humans are infatuated with sexual nature, behavioral nature, and other instances of ordinary processes of psychological behavior. Therefore, nature is not limited to physical aspects of the world. Nature is a very unique balance of what is real, and what is unreal.

What is a book?
A book is much like nature. A book flirts with many aspects of life dealing with the real and unreal. A book is a linguistically complex element of humanity’s portal to information, imagination, nature, and basically all elements of the world around us. A book, like nature and a child, is not subjective to one single definition. Instead, one must consider that a book, nature, a child, is defined by the inability to define them without concern.