'Cow' and the Critics
VLADECK, BRUCE
PERSPECTIVES 'Cow' and the Critics By Bruce Vladeck In this period of critical re-examination of literary criticism, one of those recurrent phenomena when students of English clear...
...Unfortunately, however, the recent spate of papers on novels, poetry, etc., has ignored a whole genre of literature...
...The New York Times, May 22, 1961...
...PERSPECTIVES 'Cow' and the Critics By Bruce Vladeck In this period of critical re-examination of literary criticism, one of those recurrent phenomena when students of English clear the attics of all the accumulated rubbish,1 so to speak, it is necessary to look again at some of the more important works in our written tradition...
...According to them, the cow's decision to jump over the moon represents the highest, purest form of engagement...
...XIX, No...
...12-13...
...17 Bruce Vladeck, a senior at Stuyvesant H.S., will continue his "critical" studies at Harvard this fall...
...XIV, No...
...4. 3. "Yes," Ibid...
...The fact that the story was converted into a rather incredible, dream-like series of images, only lends credence to the belief that Goose was a psychotic manic-depressive, given to frequent daydreaming and lying.11 "Cow" did not escape the attention of Marxist criticism...
...22-27...
...XXXVI, No...
...6. True Romances, Vols...
...Khrushchev asserted that "Cow" was a profound statement of faith in the Soviet people, which said that they were capable of achieving anything, including reaching the moon...
...They saw the rhyme as an idealized comment on life, putting particular emphasis on the last line, which represents, of course, fulfilled love...
...Stengel, Charles Dillon, Collected Works, p. 1178...
...5. 4. Goose, Collected Works, pp...
...He then went on to explain that Goose, again revealing a prophetic quality, employed the canine image to portray the capitalists sitting by idly, listening to decadent music, and laughing at the Russians while courting the poor with vague promises that forced them to "run away" from true Socialism.13 Kremlinologists found this speech most important, coming as it did scant weeks before the launching of the first manned Soviet space capsule.14 The Nouveau Vague of European existentialists have also attempted to interpret "Cow...
...The Values of Consensus," L. B. Johnson, speech addressed to National Democratic Committee...
...2. 16...
...May 7, 1965...
...The genre to which I have alluded is typified, in fact wholly embodied, in the works of M. Goose, an English poetess about whom scholars know very little, except that she appears to have been a she.2 Even here, our knowledge is rather limited, but many notable authorities, this author included, seem to be in concurrence.3 The most well known, and unquestionably the most important of Goose's works is an untitled fiveline verse, which goes as follows: Hey-diddle-diddle The cat in the fiddle, The cow jumped over the moon...
...3. 8. "Bullkamp is Crazy," F. Scott, Oxford Review, Vol...
...The earliest members of this group, a prurient lot to be sure, interpreted "Cow," as they did everything else, from a sexual point of view...
...Was Mother Goose a Psycho...
...7. "Folk Dirges of Central Queensland," Sing Out...
...They saw the plate and the spoon as a happy sexual union thwarted by puritanistic society, while the symbolism of the cat in the fiddle was too obvious to even merit discussion...
...not, mind you, to say anything new or of any importance, but rather to summarize past learning so as to expedite future research...
...In a speech delivered on May 21, 1961, Chairman Khrushchev claimed that Goose was really a Russian poet by the name of Goosofsky, an 18 century Marxist who, by veiled allusion, had predicted Soviet achievements in space...
...Another critic, the eccentric J. J. Bullkamp, insisted to his dying day that the line concerning the dog had been added only to make the poem longer, since four-line verses were much out of fashion in Goose's day...
...It was written only in the hope that further examination of "Cow" will lead to further understanding of this monumental work, and perhaps ultimately to a consensus of opinion.16 I should like to close with a quotation from a famous American scholar, apropos of the need for further enlightenment, and particularly in reference to any failings this paper may have had: "You can look it up...
...1. "Clearing the Attics of Literature," Literary Quarterly, Vol...
...The Truth About Mother Goose," Review of Psychoanalytic Research, Vol...
...Of course, a very few primitivists have chosen to interpret "Cow" as a nonsense rhyme of no intrinsic meaning, putting it alongside the works of such other nonsense writers as Edward Lear, Walt Kelly, Dwight D. Eisenhower,5 etc...
...It was further hypothesized that one day, while the younger Goose was charged with tending the farm's herd, one of the cows leaped a fence and escaped...
...Fortunately, such a re-examination is now taking place throughout America indeed, throughout the civilized world-and also in California...
...Aside and apart from this verse's obvious literary merits of rhyme, rhythm, etc., it has long been considered from a teleological point of view, as one of Goose's most important works, in fact one of the most important literary works of the period in which she wrote...
...XXXVI, No...
...9. "The Illustrated Kama Sutra," Evergreen Review, Vol...
...The cow was considered only an epiphenomenal digression, while the laughing dog was seen by some as a derisive attack on the unthinking middle classes, by others as an artificial device to inject a mood of gaiety and lightness into the work...
...The cat in the fiddle is a recognition of the ultimate absurdity of life, a cat in a fiddle being, of course, an absurd proposition...
...it is, of course, not important whether the cow actually succeeds, it is enough that she decides to try...
...When the elder Goose discovered the loss of the animal, he flew into a rage, hurling earthenware and cutlery right and left...
...True Confessions, Vol...
...The little dog laughed to see such a sight, And the plate ran away with the spoon...
...Bach), and that she had had a pet dog of whom she was extremely fond...
...1. See also "More Trivia," Ibid...
...These critics saw the last line of the work as the escape from reality sought by most mortals...
...To them, the cow's jumping over the moon was the central theme of the verse, representing, albeit rather crudely, orgasm...
...1, pp...
...The two opening lines, they claimed, served as a folk-oriented introduction, being as they are, the first two lines of an ancient folk dirge sung by the fishsealers of northern and central Queensland (Australia...
...It will be my purpose hereinafter to attempt to re-open critical investigation in this field...
...This writer would be more than happy to comment on the latter image if the strictures of the recent Supreme Court decision did not prevent him from discussing such perversions...
...While I have tried to summarize the more important works on "Cow...
...XVIII, pp...
...17, 1936...
...Bullkamp was subsequently discredited and posthumously defrocked.8 The Victorians ignored Goose, but a new generation of critics weaned on the works of Freud was attracted by the obvious unconscious subtexts of her opus...
...Most of what has been omitted is rather banal, but some is merely trivial,15 and I am deeply sorry about the limitations of this work...
...Trivia (1) Contest," the Spectator, Vol...
...III, No...
...CIX, No...
...The National Enquirer, May 1, 1943...
...22-23...
...Extensive research was done on her life, and while almost nothing was discovered, it was postulated from textual evidence that Goose had spent her early years on a farm owned by her father, a musician for the Liverpool String Quartet (an early forerunner of the Beatles, and the prime students, in their time, of the works of P.D.Q...
...I-XVI...
...Suffice it to say that if the Freudians are to be taken seriously in this respect, it is interesting to note the obvious influence on Goose of the Kama Sutra and related works.' A later school of Freudians, more mature in their outlook on literature, sought to understand Goose by extrapolating from her work an interpretation of her psychological background...
...5. Eisenhower, Collected Speeches, infra...
...The younger Goose, severely shaken, sought solace in her pet, but being himself the product of a disturbed litter and an oppressive barnyard environment, he could only laugh hysterically.10 If this hypothesis is accepted, then it can easily be seen how Goose's traumatic experience was represented in her works...
...The Nonsensical Capitalist Sops Thrown to the Populace Hungry for Land and Bread," Izvestia, Oct...
...problems of time and space have made it necessary for me to omit much...
...2. "Was Mother Goose a She...
...See also "Scott is a Liar," 1. J. Bullkamp, Oxford Review, Vol...
...We find the first mention of Goose's "Cow" in the works of the Romantic critics...
...These interpreters, needless to say, have overlooked the deep philosophical meaning of the work, and will henceforth be ignored...
...While it was denounced by generations of Soviet critics as an example of the nonsensical capitalist sops thrown to the populace hungry for bread and land,12 later Russians claimed it for their own...
...Time Magazine, July 4, 1961...
Vol. 49 • May 1966 • No. 10
