Seuss on the Loose: Children's Folklore on the Internet
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Abstract
From William Wells Newell's Games and Songs of American Children (1884) on, folklorists have been collecting humorous verse from children and adolescents, and of that verse, parody is a major category. Iona and Peter Opie, in The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren (1959),
Herbert and Mary Knapp, in One Potato, Two Potato (1976), and Simon Bronner, in American Children's Folklore (1988), to name but the most prominent collectors, have major sections dealing with children's and adolescents' parodies of everything from nursery rhymes to political and religious songs. Numerous recent critics, including Jan Brunvand, in The Study of American Folklore (1968), Jay Mechling, "Children's Folklore," in Elliott Oring, Folk Groups and Folklore Genres (1986}, and my own "Songs. Poems, and Rhymes," in Brian Sutton-Smith, et al, Children's Folklore: A Source Book (1995), have commented on various aspects of children's and adolescents' parodies.
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