First Paper. Sing a song of Sixpence. Lord Byron.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Antonio Soriano Vidal.

Grupo: A

Poesía Inglesa de los Siglos XIX y XX.

 

 

 

 

INDEX

 

 

*Poem…………………………………..page: 3

*Abstract:

·Analisy of the poem…………………….page: 4-5

· Poet in relation to the poem…………....page: 5-6

· Context of the poem…………………...page: 6-7

* Personal opinion……………………….page: 7

* References…………………………….page: 8

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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1-Poem:

 

 

Sing a Song of Sixpence

 

Sing a song of sixpence,

a pocket full of rye.

Four and twenty blackbirds,

baked in a pie.

When the pie was opened,

the birds began to sing.

Now, wasn't that a dainty dish

to set before the king?

The king was in his counting house,

counting out his money.

The queen was in the parlour,

eating bread and honey.

The maid was in the garden,

hanging out the clothes,

When down came a blackbird

and pecked off her nose!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2-Abstract:

·Analyse the poem:

Sing a Song of Sixpence is a well known English nursery rhyme, at least as old as the eighteenth century. For that reason, the poem is a folksong or a folktale.

According to the Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, an Italian cookbook from 1549 (translated into English in 1598) actually contains a recipe "to make pies so that birds may be alive in them and fly out when it is cut up." The ODNR also cites a 1723 cook who describes this as an earlier practice, the idea being that the birds cause "a diverting Hurley-Burley amongst the Guests."

The rhyme may be a reference to pie birds (a culinary device), but it is uncertain whether these were actually well-known at the time the rhyme originated. Conversely, if the rhyme came first, it may have caused the naming and common design of the pie birds. I thought that is why at the end of the text Byron says “eating bread and honey”.

The poem is in eight line iambic pentameter with the rhyme scheme ab ab ab cc. Often, the last rhyming couplet is used for a humor comic line or humorous bathos. The structure of each stanza is the ottavarima. In Italian, because of the common rhymed endings, the effect of ottavarima is often highly comedic or highly tragic. Because of its few rhymes endings, the effect of ottavarima in English is often comic, and Byron chose it for this reason. You can see it for example when Byron says:” When down came a blackbird and pecked of her nose”.The representation of the text is the next: the 24 blackbirds reflect 24 hours in a day; the king is the sun, the queen is the moon. Furthermore, King Henry VIII is the king, Catherine of Aragon is the queen, and Ann Boleyn is the maid. The blackbirds are manorial deeds baked in a pie (I thing that is why they are black). During the period when Henry VIII was taking over the property of the Catholic Church, the abbot of Glastonbury is said to have sent his steward to London with a Christmas gift intended to appease  the king –a pie in which were hidden the deeds to twelve memorial estates. The Steward, Thomas Horner, is alleged to have opened the pie and extracted one deed that of the manor of Mells, where his descendents still live. This may be the origin of the aforementioned Little Jack Horner nursery rhyme. The song commemorates the publication of the first English bible, with the blackbirds being the letters of the alphabet set in a pica type (“baked in a pie”).  But that interpretation is dubious, since the 24 letter alphabet only existed between the 10th and the 11th centuries.

A few other explanatory notes, some courtesy of William S. and Ceil Baring-Gould authors of “The Annoted Mother Goose”:

· The “bag” in the 1744 version later became a pocket full, and it’s presumed that a “pocket full” was once a specific measurement, like a cupful.

· Rye is, of course, a grain that was (and is) commonly used in bread making, or piecrust making, as the case may be.

· The number four and twenty is among the most common in Mother Goose rhymes. It is twice twelve, or a double dozen. The number 12 brims over with tradition and associations. We have described why the birds might be baked in a pie.

· The “counting house” was the place used to conduct business, and is referenced many times in Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor.

The pretty much explains the obscurer references; the rest of the rhyme is sort of self-explanatory. “Hanging up the clothes” was the way to let them dry after washing in the pre-Kenmore era.

I’m agree with that explanatory notes because the text is like a summary of some aspects that have appeared yet in other writers like Shakespeare or James Joyce.

Furthermore, Byron is always repeating the word “counting”, and moreover, in the middle of the text appears a rhetoric question. Both aspects appeared because he wanted to give emphasis to the text, and have the text to continue in a good way.

Byron doesn’t want to participate directly in the text, it is like he’s watching what was happening in that place at that moment. Summarizing, the text is written in an omniscient subject (like a viewer of a football match that summarize what he saw).

 

·Poet in relation to the poem:

George Noel Gordon (Lord Byron) was born in 1788 in London and died in 1824 in Missolonghi. He obtained a reputation as being unconventional, eccentric, flamboyant and controversial. He was given to extremes of temper. He took his seat in the House of Lords in 1811. He has a very high social level, because his family was aristocratic. He became the first literary megastar because of his open mind and his active sexual life. Because of those sexual scandals and its numerous love affairs, people were very interested in Byron’s social life. Those scandals forced Byron to leave England because he has a lot of problems with the yellow press. He’s one of the most important exponents of the Romanticism. Romanticism is an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated around the middle of the 18th century in Western Europe, and gained strength the Industrial Revolution. It was partly a revolt against aristocratic, social, and political norms of the Enlightenment period and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature and literature. His first poems were much criticised, and he became very angry with the critics. But in 1809 he wrote his first important contribution “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers” and furthermore it is his first major satire. He thought that the way to be a better person is enriching your personality by the experience in life. That is why he continues writing poems against the opinion of the critics. The maturing process through experience is one of the essential elements in Romanticism. Romantic thought have to learn the opinion and sensation of people around you. That is why Byron talks about the king and the queen in relation to the rest of society:” The king was in his counting house, counting the money. The queen was in the parlour eating bread and honey”.

The re-founding of the Byron Society in 1971 reflects the fascination that many people have for Byron and his work. This society has become very active, publishing a learned annual journal.

Byron exercised a marked influence on Continental literature and art, and his reputation as poet is higher in many European countries than in Britain or America, although not as high as in his time.

 

·Context of the poem:

The poem Sing a Song of Sixpence, it first appeared in print in Volume II of Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book, published around 1744. There is only one known copy of Volume II, which is kept in the British Museum and is generally agreed to be the earliest existing book of nursery rhymes. The claim that it was written by the literary critic George Stevens, to satirize the poetry of Henry James Pye, the British Poet Laureate from 1790-1813, is ruled out by the chronology, as the rhyme pre-dated Pye's birth. However, Byron plays on the rhyme in the scornful Dedication of his Don Juan to the next Laureate, Robert Southey.

The wedding of Marie de Medici and Henry IV of France in 1600 contains some interesting parallels. The first surprise, though, came shortly before the starter - when the guests sat down, unfolded their napkins and saw songbirds fly out. The highlight of the meal was sherbets of milk and honey, which were created by Buontalenti.

In the text appear a lot of popular references. I’m going to explain some of them:

·The line “The maid was in the garden” was used by James Joyce in Ulysses (novel), chapter “Calypso”.

·Agatha Christie's 1953 Miss Marple mystery A Pocket Full of Rye features the rhyme.

·A.J. Cronin's 1964 novel, A Song of Sixpence, and its sequel, A Pocketful of Rye (1969), take their titles from the rhyme.

·Elvis Costello's song "Pills and Soap" is based on the rhyme, including some verses of the song.

·The line "Four and Twenty blackbirds baked in a pie" is thought by some to be the origin of 420's significance within cannabis culture.

·In Three Stooges 1947 short feature Sing a Song of Six Pants, the trio play tailors who fight a bank robber's gang.

·In the 1980 John Lennon song "Cleanup Time" from the album "Double Fantasy", the lines about the king and queen and the counting house and eating bread and honey are referenced (with the king/queen roles reversed).

·A hoax origin posted on the Lost Legends section of Snopes.com - that the song was originally used by Blackbeard's pirates to attract new members - has been accepted as the real origin by some people.

The rhyme is almost certainly older than 1744, but no earlier publication has been found (not at least as of 1970). There are earlier indirect references. Shakespeare, in Twelfth Night: “Come on, there is sixpence for you; let’s have a song”.

 

3- Personal opinion:

I like very much the poem because it is very funny and it’s a satire of his time and explain the reality that happened in his time: the king and the queen recollect money and not do anything. Furthermore, I find very interesting the poem because he’s about some aspects of the early life like the 24 hours of a day, the birds, the queen or the king.

 By my point of view that poem is like a review that could appear today in a daily magazine, but of course Byron gives his personal behaviours and it is written in prose. I think that Byron is one of the greatest writers of the romanticism and I think he’s the best that is the reason why I choose it for my paper.

 

 

 

4- References:

·http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki7Lord_Byron

·http://en.wikipwdia.org/wiki/Sing_a_Song_of_Sixpence

·http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Juan_ (Byron)