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About The Hesperian / (Lincoln, Neb.) 1885-1899 | View Entire Issue (March 1, 1895)
i t-iiwni luiimii mi m n '.' V'l'- f.yf&T ?mfy?; 1 JAM&KFF1' THE HESPERIAN f it to one of the family, and she read about tho tack and tho rest of it and screwed up her face. "Seems to me," she said," that this word should bo 'cat' instead of 'tack' shouldn't i" I meekly adopted her suggestion, I al ways do from the family. And fortunately, this time, the change did not make much difference, because I never showed it to any one else, anyway. This is what I had handed to her: "Hey diddle deacher, the tack and the teacher; The teacher jumped most to tho moon. The little boy laughed to see such sport, But alas, he had laughed too soon. n I was proud of that; it had some point to it, so it hurt me deeply to have to put "cat" for "tack." Still, I thought I'd bettor if she said I'd better, so I did, and she sug gested afterwards that it would be better to change all tho words back to the original. I did that too. It spoiled a beautiful parody, but it kept peace in the family. Another thing strikes me here. Most people read Carroll's poetry. It looks easy, so they think they will try it themselves. They try parodies first, it is easier than poetry. But they miss the principle of Car roll's charm, and think that all they have to do is to jumble the sounds up promiscuously. For example; they tako, say: "Jack bo nimble, Jack be quick, And Jack jump over Tho candlestick." They bring it out something like this: "Jim bo namble, Jick be quack, And Jick jump ovci' The kindlestack. " But this isn't like Carroll, or indeed, like anything that is sensible. So stick to com mon parodies. Then tho family will at least hope that you haven't lost quite all of your original sense. Now you have caught a glimpse of what it moans to write artistic parodies. In con clusion, I wish to add just one precept and give just one magnificent example to illus trate my meaning. Tho precept is thia: keep up the sentiment and style equal to or greater than tho orig inal. You cannot overestimate the im portance of this. For study with me this example, although it serves perhaps more as a warning than as an example. It was writ teu by one of the family, the uncle I have before mentioned. But I cannot deny that the rest of us helped him; we had to, al most, before he could finish it. Its name is "Douglass," doubtless derived from the name of tho original. And it is about shoes; the original was about love you remember. You see that, right at tho beginning, the parody has dropped from the elevation of subject in the original. But still the commonplace subject may be ex cused; the parody had to be about shoes; it was written to be read at a meeting for tho relief of Eastern sufferers who had given away their shoes at a meeting 'for the relief of Western sufferers. I say the lowering of tone might be excused in the title if it did not continue throughout the whole poem. This is tho parody: "Could ye come back to me, Douglass, Douglass, In the old likeness that I knew, I would bo so careful and easy, Douglass, Douglass, Douglass, Three-dollar shoe. "Never a dinner or fire would move me, I'd go f.s slow as hashslingcrs do, Slow as they tell me I was to give you Douglass, Douglass, Three-dollar shoe." This verse, especially, has a remarkable lowering of moral tone from the original. I think tho trouble is in tho choice of words. Compare some of them: "dinner," "fire," "hashslingers," with some from tho ori ginal, "scornful word," "sweet smilo" and "angel." The next verso is bettor.
