unit 11

• Development of Poetry for Children and their Poem-Makers


  Closely paralleled the development of prose literature addressed to children
• Prose literature addressed to children


  • Robinson Crusoe
  • Gulliver's Travels
  • Pilgrim's Progress
• Dr. Isaac Watts


  • 17th and 18th century poetry appealed mostly to older children
  • Very little genuine poetry for children before Dr. Isaac Watts'
  • Divine and Moral Songs for Children - 1715
• Early poems for children by Dr. Watts


  • Hymned verses to make children behave
  • Verses lamenting death of pets or friends - constant reminder to be prepared for death is just around the corner
• Dr. Watts' beliefs


  Morals and religion could be directly taught through hymns and songs
• Titles of Dr. Watts' poems

  • Against Lying
  • Against Evil Company
  • Examples of Early Piety
• Dr. Watts' poems


  Serious in treatment: children's thoughts directed toward life's duties and uncertainties
• Imitators/followers of Dr. Watts

  • Charles and Mary Lamb
  • Ann and Jane Taylor
  • William Blake
• William Blake


  • 1st of the important English poets to write poems for children
  • Children were not little sinners to be warned and frightened but were unspoiled handiwork of Divine love
  • Happy possessors of joyous inner wisdom
• William Blake's works


  • Songs of Innocence - 1789
  • Songs of Experience - 1794
• Songs of Innocence


  "Introduction" - 1st song in Innocence - shows a gay and laughing child in lively abandon
• Songs of Experience


  • Sharp portrayal of pain and sadness and hints on insoluble question of faith, and philosophy as in "Tiger, tiger, burning bright"
  • Feeling of sympathy for the oppressed and disinherited in "The Chimney Sweep", "The Little Black Boy" and "Holy Thursday"
• Blake's works


  • Noted for originality of rhythm and stanza pattern
  • Fitness of rhyme to spirit of his songs
  • Themes - nature, lives of simple people, gay and laughing children
  • Turned his back against everything artificial and purely formal
• Ann and Jane Taylor


  • Began to write poetry while still children themselves
  • Closely collaborated till the death of Jane
  • 1st poets to write exclusively for children
  • Purpose in writing poetry: didactic - develop morals, refine manners and impart information to young children
• Taylors' poems


  • Involved matters of morals and conduct a great deal
  • Included a wide range of subjects drawn from nature experiences and some plays
  • About flowers, birds, sun, moon, stars, the seasons, the fields and gardens
• Taylors' works


  • Original Poems for Infant Minds: by Several Young Persons (1804)
  • Rhymes for the Nursery (1806)
  • Hymns for the Infant Minds (1808)
  • Popular poems: "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," "I Like Little Pussy," and "Pretty Cow."
• Edward Lear


  • No literary forerunner
  • 19 y/o - drew colored drawings of birds for the London Zoological Society
  • Later was employed by the Earl of Darby to draw pictures of his family
• Edward Lear's works


  • Book of Nonsense (1846) - started early caricatures with limericks - unadulterated nonsense
  • Nonsense Songs (1871) - contained some of the most delightful of his poems - just as nonsensical as the limericks but showed coherence and evidence of plot
• Edward Lear's poems


  • Verses - entertaining for both adult and children
• Christina Rossetti


  • Very simple little poems for children
  • Possessed much of spiritual quality shown by Blake's works
  • Began to write verse when still a child
  • A delicate child, her life had been almost nun-like in seclusion
  • Warm and introspective nature found outlet in poetry, in service to others and in religious devotion
  • Great master of musical language and metrical arts
• Christina Rossetti's works


  • Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862) - 1st and most inspired work
  • Sing-song (1872) - collection of pure lyrics and little nursery poems - dedicated to the infant son of Prof. Arthur Cayley of Cambridge, a very close friend
• Christina Rossetti's poems


  • Like Blake, used very few figures of speech
  • Presented with simplicity, used simple, direct and childlike sensory images
• Celia Laighton Thaxter


  One of earliest American writers of verse for children
• Celia Laighton Thaxter


  One of America's earliest writers of verse for children, noted for her many beautiful and truthful pictures of birds and their ways in Stories and Poems (1883), which includes "The Sandpiper'", "Wild Geese," and the "Sparrows", loves children, with close observation and understanding of them, a nature poet
• Robert Louis Stevenson


  Considered as the 1st true poet-laureate of children, only child, delicate and frail, spent most of his time at home under the tender care of a frail mother, and his devoted and beloved nurse, quiet pleasures woven into his verses, poems had true lyrical quality, many had been set to music, had the ability to express what a child feels and thinks
• A Child's Garden of Verses


  Considered as a classic, and set as a standard of style and quality for all other writers of children's poetry, Consists of 64 poems, Dedicated to his childhood nurse, Alison Cunningham, "My Shadow" from the A Child's Garden is written in iambic heptameter, and can be considered a fourteener
• Laura Elizabeth Richards


  Daughter of Julia Ward Howe, author of The Battle Hymn of the Republic, a poet and a musician, enjoyed a home of broad culture, fine family and social relations, published several collections of songs and rhymes, and stories which she contributed exclusively to the St. Nicholas, a leading magazine for children, In My Nursery: A Book of Verse (1890) - 1st book of verse, The Hurdy-Gurdy (1932) - 2nd collection of verses
• Tirra-Lirra: Rhymes Old and New


  Titles are well-chosen, suggestive of homely flavor of the verses and the inevitable beat of their rhythm, sets the key for the tripping songs of laughter, delightful to most children, many poems in Tirra Lirra, more for upper than lower grades, appeals to both young and adults
• Walter de la Mare


  Most important writer of poetry for children with the turn of the century, Songs of Childhood (1901) - 1st collection of poems, A Child's Day (1912), Peacock Pie (1913) - best known collection, Down-a-Down Derry: A Book of Fairy Poems (1922), started the stream of lovely verse, showed great insight into the fleeting moods and deep-lying roots of child's nature
• Walter de la Mare


  Shows greatest gift in writing about fairies, woodland spirits, and other blithe spirits in fairyland, affectionately called "Poet of the Fairies", Fairies and Chimneys (1918) - 1st book of poems for children, The Fairy Green, The Fairy Flute, Fairies and Friends, fairies were believable -mixed openly in the affairs of modern, urban and country life, did activities of real people, poems had sense of mystery and enchantment enjoyed by children, also wrote amusing light verse about modern child and what he is interested in
• Rose Fyleman


  More familiarly known as A.A. Milne, started literary work by giving full attention to playwriting, started writing 1st book of verse when he had his 1st son, When We Were Very Young (1924) - 1st book of poems, Now We Are Six (1927) -2nd collection, poems had delightful humor, captivating rhythms and appealing childish fancies, coined many "funny words" to increase rhythmic effects as in "The Three Foxes"
• Rachel Field


  Most contemporary writers drew subjects from daily life and made their greatest contribution in literature in the idealized portrayal of everyday life and commonplace or ordinary things, been successful in this genre, collections contained many poems about people and objects in their environment like "The Flower Cart Man," "Taxis," "Skyscrapers," and "The Cuckoo Shop", The Pointed People, A Little Book of Days, Taxis and Toadstools - three books of poems for children
• Dorothy Aldis


  Many short, poems for children-simple and common domestic scenes and events, portrayed with humor and charm, versers -popular with younger children for these poems appeal to young children's interests, activities and observations, Everything and Anything; Here, There and Everywhere; Hop, Skip and Jump and Before Things Happen - four books of verse published in one volume All Together
• Elizabeth Madox Roberts


  Most contemporary writers drew subjects from daily life and made their greatest contribution in literature in the idealized portrayal of everyday life and commonplace or ordinary things