View source for Humpty Dumpty

{{Short description|Nursery rhyme character}}
{{About|the nursery rhyme||Humpty Dumpty (disambiguation)}}
{{Good article}}<!---it belongs up here, where it actually is--->
{{Pp-semi-indef|small=yes}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2015}}
{{Infobox song
| name           = Humpty Dumpty
| cover          = Denslow's Humpty Dumpty 1904.jpg
| caption        = Illustration by [[William Wallace Denslow|W. W. Denslow]], 1904
| type           = nursery
| published      = 1797
}}

'''Humpty Dumpty''' is a character in an English [[nursery rhyme]], probably originally a [[riddle]], and is typically portrayed as an [[anthropomorphic]] [[egg]], though he is not explicitly described as such. The first recorded versions of the rhyme date from late eighteenth-century England and the tune from 1870 in [[James William Elliott]]'s ''National Nursery Rhymes and Nursery Songs''.<ref name="todayifoundout" /> Its origins are obscure, and several theories have been advanced to suggest original meanings. The rhyme is listed in the [[Roud Folk Song Index]] as No. 13026.

As a figure in nursery culture, the character appears under a variety of near-rhyming names, such as Lille Trille (Danish), Wirgele-Wargele (German), Hümpelken-Pümpelken (German) and Hobberti Bob ([[Pennsylvania Dutch]]).<ref>Iona and Peter Opie, ''The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes'', OUP 1997, pp. 254-5</ref> As a  
character and literary allusion, Humpty Dumpty was referred to in several works of literature and popular culture in the nineteenth century. [[Lewis Carroll]] in particular made him an animated egg in his 1871 book ''[[Through the Looking-Glass]]'', while in the United States the character was popularised by [[George L. Fox (clown)|George L. Fox]] as a clown of that name in the [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]] [[pantomime]] musical ''Humpty Dumpty'' (1868).<ref>[https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Humpty_Dumpty/wE9HAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=pantomime+%22Humpty+Dumpty%22&pg=PT2&printsec=frontcover ''Humpty Dumpty''], [[Olympic Theatre (New York City)|Olympic Theatre]] brochure, 1868</ref>

==Lyrics and melody==
The rhyme is well known in the English language. The common text from 1882 is:<ref>{{cite book|page=72|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MVoWAAAAYAAJ|title=Yale Songs. A Collection of Songs in Use by the Glee Club and Students of Yale College|year=1882|editor=Francis Bartlett Kellogg|publisher=Shepard & Kellogg}}</ref>
<blockquote><poem>
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again.
</poem></blockquote>

It is a single [[quatrain]] with external rhymes<ref>J. Smith, ''Poetry Writing'' (Teacher Created Resources, 2002), {{ISBN|0-7439-3273-0}}, p. 95.</ref> that follow the pattern of AABB and with a [[trochaic]] metre, which is common in nursery rhymes.<ref>P. Hunt, ed., ''International Companion Encyclopedia of Children's Literature'' (London: Routledge, 2004), {{ISBN|0-203-16812-7}}, p. 174.</ref> The melody commonly associated with the rhyme was first recorded by composer and nursery rhyme collector [[James William Elliott]] in his ''National Nursery Rhymes and Nursery Songs'' (London, 1870), as outlined below:<ref>J. J. Fuld, ''The Book of World-Famous Music: Classical, Popular, and Folk'' (Courier Dover Publications, 5th ed., 2000), {{ISBN|0-486-41475-2}}, p. 502.</ref>

<score sound="1">
\new Staff <<
\clef treble \key bes \major {
      \time 6/8 \partial 2.     
      \relative d' {
	d4 f8 es4 g8 | f8 g a bes4. | d,4 f8 es4 g8 | f8 d bes c4. \bar"" \break
        d8 d f es es g | f8 g a bes4. | d8 d bes es es d | c8 bes a bes4. \bar"" \break
      }
    }
%\new Lyrics \lyricmode {
%}
>>
\layout { indent = #0 }
\midi { \tempo 4. = 56 }
</score>

==Origins==
[[File:MotherGooseHumptyDumpty.jpg|thumb|Illustration from [[Walter Crane]]'s ''Mother Goose's Nursery Rhymes'' (1877), showing Humpty Dumpty as a boy[[File:MotherGooseHumptyDumpty.mid|thumb|left]].]]
The earliest known version was published in [[Samuel Arnold (composer)|Samuel Arnold]]'s ''Juvenile Amusements'' in 1797<ref name="todayifoundout">{{cite web |url=http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/04/the-origin-of-humpty-dumpty/ |title=The Origin of Humpty Dumpty |language=en |publisher=What I Learned Today |author=Emily Upton |date=24 April 2013 |access-date=19 September 2015}}</ref> with the lyrics:{{sfnp|Opie|Opie|1997|pp=213–215}}
<blockquote><poem>
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
Four-score Men and Four-score more,
Could not make Humpty Dumpty where he was before.
</poem></blockquote>

A manuscript addition to a copy of ''[[Mother Goose]]'s Melody'' published in 1803 has the modern version with a different last line: "Could not set Humpty Dumpty up again".{{sfnp|Opie|Opie|1997|pp=213–215}} It was published in 1810 in a version of ''[[Gammer Gurton's Garland]]''.<ref>Joseph Ritson, [https://books.google.com/books?id=XtAqAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA36 ''Gammer Gurton's Garland: or, the Nursery Parnassus; a Choice Collection of Pretty Songs and Verses, for the Amusement of All Little Good Children Who Can Neither Read Nor Run''] (London: Harding and Wright, 1810), p. 36.</ref> (Note: Original spelling variations left intact.)
<blockquote><poem>
Humpty Dumpty sate on a wall,
Humpti Dumpti had a great fall;
Threescore men and threescore more,
Cannot place Humpty dumpty as he was before.
</poem></blockquote>

In 1841 an anthology of Latin and Greek translations of popular literature was published under the title ''Arudines Cami'' which included a version of the rhyme in Latin translation by [[Henry Drury (educator)|Henry Drury]]. The final two English lines translated in this case now read 
::Not all the king's horses, nor all the queen's men,
::Could put Humpty Dumpty on the wall again.<ref>''The British Critic and Quarterly Theological Review'', London 1842, Vol.32, [https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_British_Critic_Quarterly_Theological/4_IQBuJbxxcC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22the+north+wind+doth+blow%22&pg=PA138&printsec=frontcover p. 116]</ref>

In 1842, [[James Orchard Halliwell]] published an alternative version in his collection of ''The Nursery Rhymes of England'':<ref>J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps, ''The Nursery Rhymes of England'' (John Russell Smith, 6th ed., 1870), p. 122.</ref>
<blockquote><poem>
Humpty Dumpty lay in a beck.
With all his [[sinews]] around his neck;
Forty Doctors and forty wrights
Couldn't put Humpty Dumpty to rights!
</poem></blockquote>

Evidence of an alternative American version closer to the modern received rhyme quoted above is given by [[William Carey Richards]] in the issue of a children's magazine for 1843, where he comments that he had come across it as a riddle when he was five-years old and that the answer was "an egg".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Richards |first1=William Carey |journal=The Orion |title=Monthly chat with readers and correspondents |date=March–April 1844 |location=[[Penfield, Georgia]] |volume=II |number=5 & 6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=E4c4AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA371 |page=371 |language=en}}</ref>

According to the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'', in the seventeenth century, the term "humpty dumpty" referred to a drink of [[brandy]] boiled with [[ale]].{{sfnp|Opie|Opie|1997|pp=213–215}} The riddle probably exploited, for misdirection, the fact that "humpty dumpty" was also eighteenth-century [[Reduplication#English|reduplicative]] slang for a short and clumsy person.<ref>E. Partridge and P. Beale, ''Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English'' (Routledge, 8th ed., 2002), {{ISBN|0-415-29189-5}}, p. 582.</ref> The riddle may depend upon the assumption that a clumsy person falling off a wall might not be irreparably damaged, whereas an egg would be. The rhyme is no longer posed as a riddle, since the answer is now so well known. Similar riddles have been recorded by [[folklorist]]s in other languages, such as "Boule Boule" in [[French language|French]], "Lille Trille" in [[Swedish language|Swedish]] and [[Norwegian Language|Norwegian]], and "Runtzelken-Puntzelken" or "Humpelken-Pumpelken" in different parts of Germany—although none is as widely known as Humpty Dumpty is in English.{{sfnp|Opie|Opie|1997|pp=213–215}}<ref>{{cite book |author=Lina Eckenstein |title=Comparative Studies in Nursery Rhymes |year=1906 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/comparativestudi00eckerich/page/106 106]–107 |url=https://archive.org/details/comparativestudi00eckerich |ol=7164972M |access-date=30 January 2018 |via=archive.org}}</ref>

==Meaning==
The rhyme does not explicitly state that the subject is an egg, possibly because it may have been originally posed as a [[riddle]].{{sfnp|Opie|Opie|1997|pp=213–215}} There are also various theories of an original "Humpty Dumpty". One, advanced by Katherine Elwes Thomas in 1930<ref>E. Commins, ''Lessons from Mother Goose'' (Lack Worth, Fl: Humanics, 1988), {{ISBN|0-89334-110-X}}, p. 23.</ref> and adopted by [[Robert Ripley]],{{sfnp|Opie|Opie|1997|pp=213–215}} posits that Humpty Dumpty is King [[Richard III of England]], depicted as [[hunchbacked]] in Tudor histories and particularly in [[Richard III (play)|Shakespeare's play]], and who was defeated, despite his armies, at [[Battle of Bosworth Field|Bosworth Field]] in 1485.

In 1785, [[Francis Grose]]'s ''Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue'' noted that a "Humpty Dumpty" was "a short clumsey{{sic}} person of either sex, also ale boiled with brandy"; no mention was made of the rhyme.<ref name="Grose1785">{{cite book|last=Grose|first=Francis|title=A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RyVKAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA90|year=1785|publisher=S. Hooper|pages=90–}}</ref> The name is also commonly applied to a person in an insecure position, something that would be difficult to reconstruct once broken, or a short and fat person.<ref>E. Webber and M. Feinsilber, ''Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Allusions'' (Merriam-Webster, 1999), {{ISBN|0-87779-628-9}}, pp. 277–78.</ref>

[[File:Humpty.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.9|Poster advertising the 1868 American pantomime starring George L. Fox]]

Professor [[David Daube]] suggested in ''[[The Oxford Magazine]]'' of 16 February 1956 that Humpty Dumpty was a "tortoise" [[siege engine]], an armored frame, used unsuccessfully to approach the walls of the Parliamentary-held city of [[Gloucester]] in 1643 during the [[Siege of Gloucester]] in the [[English Civil War]]. This was on the basis of a contemporary account of the attack, but without evidence that the rhyme was connected.<ref>"Nursery Rhymes and History", ''[[The Oxford Magazine]]'', vol. 74 (1956), pp. 230–232, 272–274 and 310–312; reprinted in: Calum&nbsp;M.&nbsp;Carmichael, ed., ''Collected Works of David Daube'', vol. 4, "Ethics and Other Writings" (Berkeley, CA: Robbins Collection, 2009), {{ISBN|978-1-882239-15-3}}, pp. 365–366.</ref> The theory was part of an anonymous series of articles on the origin of nursery rhymes and was widely acclaimed in academia,<ref>[[Alan Rodger]]: {{cite web| url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-professor-david-daube-1078397.html|title=Obituary: Professor David Daube.|website=[[Independent.co.uk]] |date=5 March 1999 }} ''[[The Independent]]'', 5 March 1999.</ref> but it was derided by others as "ingenuity for ingenuity's sake" and declared to be a spoof.<ref>[[Iona Opie|I. Opie]], 'Playground rhymes and the oral tradition', in P. Hunt, S. G. Bannister Ray, ''International Companion Encyclopedia of Children's Literature'' (London: Routledge, 2004), {{ISBN|0-203-16812-7}}, p.&nbsp;76.</ref><ref>{{cite book|editor=Iona and Peter Opie|editor-link=Iona and Peter Opie|title=The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes|edition=2nd|location=Oxford|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1997|orig-year=1951|isbn=978-0-19-860088-6|page=254|ref={{harvid|Opie|Opie|1997}}}}</ref> The link was nevertheless popularized by a children's opera ''All the King's Men'' by [[Richard Rodney Bennett]], first performed in 1969.<ref>{{cite book |author=C. M. Carmichael |title=Ideas and the Man: remembering David Daube |volume=177 |series=Studien zur europäischen Rechtsgeschichte |location=Frankfurt |publisher=Vittorio Klostermann |year=2004 |isbn=3-465-03363-9 |pages=103–104}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |access-date=18 September 2012 |url=http://www.universaledition.com/Sir-Richard-Rodney-Bennett/composers-and-works/composer/47/work/1081/work_introduction |title=Sir Richard Rodney Bennett: All the King's Men |publisher=Universal Edition }}</ref>

From 1996, the website of the [[Colchester]] tourist board attributed the origin of the rhyme to a cannon recorded as used from the church of [[Colchester Arts Centre|St Mary-at-the-Walls]] by the Royalist defenders in the [[Siege of Colchester|siege of 1648]].<ref name=BSHistorian/> In 1648, Colchester was a walled town with a castle and several churches and was protected by the city wall. The story given was that a large cannon, which the website claimed was colloquially called Humpty Dumpty, was strategically placed on the wall. A shot from a Parliamentary cannon succeeded in damaging the wall beneath Humpty Dumpty, which caused the cannon to tumble to the ground. The Royalists (or Cavaliers, "all the King's men") attempted to raise Humpty Dumpty on to another part of the wall, but the cannon was so heavy that "All the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't put Humpty together again". Author Albert Jack claimed in his 2008 book ''Pop Goes the Weasel: The Secret Meanings of Nursery Rhymes'' that there were two other verses supporting this claim.<ref>A. Jack, ''Pop Goes the Weasel: The Secret Meanings of Nursery Rhymes'' (London: Allen Lane, 2008), {{ISBN|1-84614-144-3}}.</ref> Elsewhere, he claimed to have found them in an "old dusty library, [in] an even older book",<ref>{{Cite web |last=Jack |first=Albert |date=2009-09-30 |title=The Real Story of Humpty Dumpty |url=http://us.penguingroup.com/static/html/blogs/real-story-humpty-dumpty-albert-jack |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100227020103/http://us.penguingroup.com/static/html/blogs/real-story-humpty-dumpty-albert-jack |archive-date=2010-02-27 |website=Penguin Blog (USA) - Penguin Group (USA)}}</ref> but did not state what the book was or where it was found. It has been pointed out that the two additional verses are not in the style of the seventeenth century or of the existing rhyme, and that they do not fit with the earliest printed versions of the rhyme, which do not mention horses and men.<ref name="BSHistorian">{{Cite web |date=2008-10-11 |title=Putting the "dump" in Humpty Dumpty |url=https://bshistorian.wordpress.com/2008/10/11/putting-the-dump-in-humpty-dumpty/ |access-date=2024-01-13 |website=The BS Historian |language=en}}</ref>

==Adaptations==
American actor [[George L. Fox (clown)|George L. Fox]] helped to popularise the nursery rhyme character in a nineteenth-century  [[pantomime]] on [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]],<ref>L. Senelick, ''The Age and Stage of George L. Fox 1825–1877'' (University of Iowa Press, 1999), {{ISBN|0877456844}}</ref> where he figures as a clown. During the nineteenth century, too, Humpty Dumpty gave his name to a number of musical items, dependent either on the nursery rhyme or on the pantomime. They include [[Alfred Caldicott]]'s [[Glee (music)|glee]] of 1878<ref>''Monthly Musical Record'', 1 June 1878, [https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Monthly_musical_record/VG4n_35SHRgC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=music+%22Humpty+Dumpty%22&pg=PA93&printsec=frontcover p. 93]</ref> and E. P. Sweeting's [[Round (music)|round]] of 1893,<ref>[https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Hora_Novissima/s2MRAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=music+%22Humpty+Dumpty%22&pg=PT3&printsec=frontcover ''The School Music Review'']</ref> as well as [[Walford Davies]]' 1907 ''Humpty Dumpty'', described as "a short cantata for children, consisting of a prelude, four short settings of the old nursery rhyme, and part of the scene between Alice and Humpty Dumpty (from ''Alice Through the Looking-Glass'')".<ref>[https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Humpty_Dumpty_A_Short_Cantata_for_Childr/pl9DwAEACAAJ?hl=en Google Books]</ref> There were also purely musical items in the US, such as the 1875 [[galop]] by Harry R. Williams,<ref>[https://jenikirbyhistory.getarchive.net/media/humpty-dumpty-galop-1?zoom=true Get Archive sheet music]</ref> the 1876 [[polka]] by E. Jullian Gray<ref>[https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Humpty_Dumpty_polka/X-sxyqH4Oo4C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22Humpty+Dumpty+polka%22&pg=PP1&printsec=frontcover ''Fairy Stories by E. Jullian Gray'']</ref> and the 1900 [[schottische]] by H. Engelmann.<ref>''Catalogue of Title Entries'', vol. 23, [https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Catalogue_of_Title_Entries_of_Books_and/9-ujMXIDSGEC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=schottische+%22Humpty+Dumpty%22&pg=PA287&printsec=frontcover p. 287]</ref>

=== Lewis Carroll's ''Through the Looking-Glass'' ===
[[File:Humpty Dumpty Tenniel.jpg|thumb|Humpty Dumpty and Alice, from ''[[Through the Looking-Glass]]''. Illustration by [[John Tenniel]].]]

Humpty Dumpty makes an appearance in [[Lewis Carroll]]'s ''[[Through the Looking-Glass]]'' (1871). There [[Alice (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)|Alice]] remarks that Humpty is "exactly like an egg", which Humpty finds to be "very provoking". Alice clarifies that she said he looks like an egg, not that he is one. They then go on discuss [[semantics]] and [[pragmatics]]<ref>F. R. Palmer, ''Semantics'' (Cambridge: [[Cambridge University Press]], 2nd ed., 1981), {{ISBN|0-521-28376-0}}, p. 8.</ref> when Humpty Dumpty says, "my name means the shape I am".<ref>L. Carroll, ''Through the Looking-Glass'' (Raleigh, North Carolina: Hayes Barton Press, 1872), {{ISBN|1-59377-216-5}}, p. 72.</ref>

A. J. Larner suggested that Carroll's Humpty Dumpty had [[prosopagnosia]] on the basis of his description of his finding faces hard to recognise:<ref>{{cite journal|author=A. J. Larner|year=1998|title=Lewis Carroll's Humpty Dumpty: an early report of prosopagnosia?|journal=Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry|volume=75|issue=7|pages=1063|doi=10.1136/jnnp.2003.027599|pmc=1739130|pmid=15201376}}</ref>

{{quote|
"The face is what one goes by, generally," Alice remarked in a thoughtful tone.

"That's just what I complain of," said Humpty Dumpty. "Your face is the same as everybody has—the two eyes,—" (marking their places in the air with his thumb) "nose in the middle, mouth under. It's always the same. Now if you had the two eyes on the same side of the nose, for instance—or the mouth at the top—that would be ''some'' help."}}

=== James Joyce's ''Finnegans Wake'' ===
[[James Joyce]] used the story of Humpty Dumpty as a recurring motif of the [[Fall of man|Fall of Man]] in the 1939 novel ''[[Finnegans Wake]]''.<ref>J. S. Atherton, ''The Books at the Wake: A Study of Literary Allusions in James Joyce's Finnegans Wake'' (1959, SIU Press, 2009), {{ISBN|0-8093-2933-6}}, p. 126.</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Worthington |first1=Mabel |title=Nursery Rhymes in Finnegans Wake |journal=The Journal of American Folklore |date=1957 |volume=70 |issue=275 |pages=37–48 |doi=10.2307/536500 |jstor=536500 |url=https://doi.org/10.2307/536500|url-access=subscription }}</ref> One of the most easily recognizable references is at the end of the second chapter, in the first verse of the [[The Ballad of Persse O'Reilly|Ballad of Persse O'Reilly]]:

{{poemquote|
Have you heard of one Humpty Dumpty
How he fell with a roll and a rumble
And curled up like Lord Olofa Crumple
By the butt of the Magazine Wall,
(Chorus) Of the Magazine Wall,
Hump, helmet and all?}}

===In science===
Humpty Dumpty has been used to demonstrate the [[second law of thermodynamics]]. The law describes a process known as [[entropy]], a measure of the number of specific ways in which a system may be arranged, often taken to be a measure of "disorder". The higher the entropy, the higher the disorder. After his fall and subsequent shattering, the inability to put him together again is representative of this principle, as it would be highly unlikely (though not impossible) to return him to his earlier state of lower entropy, as the entropy of an isolated system never decreases.<ref name=Entropy>{{cite news|last=Chang|first=Kenneth|title=Humpty Dumpty Restored: When Disorder Lurches Into Order|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/30/science/humpty-dumpty-restored-when-disorder-lurches-into-order.html|access-date=2 May 2013|newspaper=The New York Times|date=30 July 2002}}</ref><ref name="Entropy 2">{{cite news|first=Lee|last=Langston|title=Part III – The Second Law of Thermodynamics|url=http://www.engr.uconn.edu/pdf/HartfordCourantNIEchapter3sci10C_0708.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080513044934/http://www.engr.uconn.edu/pdf/HartfordCourantNIEchapter3sci10C_0708.pdf|url-status=dead|archive-date=13 May 2008|access-date=2 May 2013|newspaper=Hartford Courant}}</ref><ref name="Entropy 3">{{cite journal|first=W. S.|last=Franklin|title=The Second Law of Thermodynamics: Its Basis In Intuition and Common Sense|journal=[[The Popular Science Monthly]]|date=March 1910|page=240|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WiADAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA240}}</ref>

==See also==
{{Portal|Children's literature}}
*[[List of nursery rhymes]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* [https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/gdc/dcmsiabooks/th/ro/ug/hl/oo/ki/ng/gl/00/ca/rr/_4/throughlookinggl00carr_4/throughlookinggl00carr_4.pdf Library of Congress' Facsimile of the 1899 illustrated edition of ''Through the Looking-Glass''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211024181115/https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/gdc/dcmsiabooks/th/ro/ug/hl/oo/ki/ng/gl/00/ca/rr/_4/throughlookinggl00carr_4/throughlookinggl00carr_4.pdf |date=24 October 2021 }}

{{Alice}}
{{Eggs}}

{{Authority control}}
[[Category:1797 songs]]
[[Category:Lewis Carroll characters]]
[[Category:Riddles]]
[[Category:Eggs in culture]]
[[Category:English nursery rhymes]]
[[Category:English folk songs]]
[[Category:English children's songs]]
[[Category:Traditional children's songs]]
[[Category:Songs about fictional male characters]]
[[Category:Action songs]]
[[Category:Cultural depictions of Richard III of England]]
[[Category:Fictional characters introduced in 1797]]