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| Author | Luis van Rooten |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Grossman Publishers |
Publication date | 1967 |
Published in English | 1967 |
| Media type | book |
| Pages | 76 |
| OCLC | 1208360 |
| LC Class | 67-21230 |
Mots D'Heures: Gousses, Rames: The D'Antin Manuscript (Mother Goose Rhymes), published in 1967 by Luis d'Antin van Rooten, is purportedly a collection of poems written in archaic French with learned glosses. In fact, they are English-language nursery rhymes written homophonically as a nonsensical French text (with pseudo-scholarly explanatory footnotes); that is, as an English-to-French homophonic translation.[1] The result is not merely the English nursery rhyme but that nursery rhyme as it would sound if spoken in English by someone with a strong French accent. Even the manuscript's title, when spoken aloud, sounds like "Mother Goose Rhymes" with a strong French accent; it literally means "Words of Hours: Pods, Paddles."
Here is van Rooten's version of Humpty Dumpty:[2]
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Un petit d'un petit an English nursery rhyme in a French accent
Transcription
Nursery rhymes
The original English nursery rhymes that correspond to the numbered poems in Mots d’Heures: Gousses, Rames are as follows:[3]
- Humpty Dumpty
- Old King Cole
- Hey Diddle Diddle
- Old Mother Hubbard
- There Was a Little Man and He Had a Little Gun
- Hickory Dickory Dock
- Jack Sprat
- Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater
- There Was a Crooked Man
- Little Miss Muffet
- Jack and Jill
- There Was a Little Girl She Had a Little Curl
- Little Jack Horner
- Ride a Cockhorse to Banbury Cross
- Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor
- Rain Rain Go Away
- Pat-a-cake Pat-a-cake Baker's Man
- Mistress Mary Quite Contrary
- Roses Are Red Violets Are Blue
- Tom Tom the Piper's Son
- Mary Had a Little Lamb
- Cross Patch Draw the Latch
- See Saw Margery Daw
- The Queen of Hearts She Made Some Tarts
- One Two Buckle My Shoe
- There Was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe
- Ladybird Ladybird Fly Away Home
- Monday's Child
- Lucy Locket
- Curly Locks
- Here Is the Church Here Is the Steeple
- Simple Simon
- I Do Not Like Thee Doctor Fell
- Pussycat Pussycat
- Little Bo Peep
- Baa Baa Black Sheep
- Polly Put the Kettle On
- Lock the Dairy Door
- This Little Pig Went to Market
- Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep
Secondary use
Ten of the Mots d’Heures: Gousses, Rames have been set to music by Lawrence Whiffin.[4]
Similar works
An earlier example of homophonic translation (in this case French-to-English) is "Frayer Jerker" (Frère Jacques) in Anguish Languish (1956).[5]
A later book in the English-to-French genre is N'Heures Souris Rames (Nursery Rhymes), published in 1980 by Ormonde de Kay.[6] It contains some forty nursery rhymes, among which are Coucou doux de Ledoux (Cock-A-Doodle-Doo), Signe, garçon. Neuf Sikhs se pansent (Sing a Song of Sixpence) and Hâte, carrosse bonzes (Hot Cross Buns).
A similar work in German-English is Mörder Guss Reims: The Gustav Leberwurst Manuscript by John Hulme (1st Edition 1981; various publishers listed; ISBN 0517545594, ISBN 978-0517545591 and others). The dust jacket, layout and typography are very similar in style and appearance to the original Mots D'Heures albeit with a different selection of nursery rhymes.
Marcel Duchamp draws parallels between the method behind Mots d'Heures and certain works of Raymond Roussel.[7]
Publication history
- 1967, USA, Viking Adult, ISBN 0-670-49064-4, hardcover, 40 pp.
- 1967, UK, Grossman, ISBN 1-299-26218-X, 43 pp.
- 1968, UK, Angus & Robertson, ISBN 0-207-94991-3, May 1968, hardcover, 80 pp.
- 1977, UK, Angus & Robertson, ISBN 0-207-95799-1, De Luxe Ed edition, November 17, 1977, 40 pp.
- 1980, US, Penguin, ISBN 978-0-14-005730-0, November 20, 1980, paperback, 80 pp.
- 2009, UK, Blue Door, ISBN 978-0-00-732469-9, 29 October 2009, hardcover, 48 pp.
See also
Notes
References
- ^ Janson-Smith, Patrick (27 November 2009). "A French excursion for classic nursery rhymes" (Guardian Books Podcast). The Guardian. Retrieved 27 November 2009.
- ^ "Luis d'Antin van Rooten's Humpty Dumpty". The Guardian. 27 November 2009. Retrieved 27 November 2009.
- ^ "Mots D'Heures: Gousses, Rames". SPJG.com. 27 January 2018. Retrieved 15 May 2018.
- ^ Whiffin, Lawrence (1999). A setting of poems from Mots d'heures - gousses, rames : for mezzo soprano (musical score). Australian Music Centre. Grosvenor Place, N.S.W.: Australian Music Centre. OCLC 222653938.
- ^ Chace, Howard L. (1956). "Frayer Jerker". Anguish Languish [English Language]. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. OCLC 2539398. Archived from the original on 2013-03-13. Retrieved 2009-11-28.
- ^ de Kay, Ormonde (1980). N'Heures Souris Rames [Nursery Rhymes]. C. N. Potter. ISBN 978-0-517-54081-7. OCLC 6378996.
- ^ Jean, Marcel, ed. (1980). Autobiography of Surrealism. New York: Viking Press; p326 footnote(MJ). ISBN 0-670-14235-2.
This page was last edited on 15 April 2024, at 02:05