Italian Nursery Rhymes:
A Rich, Varied, and Well-Used Landscape
Lella Gandini
[Figures]
While the Anglo-Saxon tradition is encapsulated in the corpus of nursery rhymes called Mother Goose, Italy presents a greater variety of traditional nursery rhymes. Even the naming conventions used for these nursery rhymes show the difficulty in distinguishing between the various genres. Folklore experts, who have been collecting the greater part of regional Italian folktales and poetry from the end of the eighteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth, have coined the following definitions: "minor folk literature," "children's folklore," "children's life," and "children's games and pleasantries." The terms most commonly used today are: ninne nanne, nenie or cantilene (lullabies or singsongs), when they are intended to make a baby go to sleep; tiritere and filastrocche (nursery rhymes), when they are used by adults to entertain children; conte and filastrocche (counting rhymes), for pieces invented by children and used to count out, jump rope or as part of their games.
But within these same genres, there is an even greater regional variety, due to the use of local themes, structure and references, as seen in the traditional fables collected in Italy's twenty regions. As an example, in the region of Abruzzo, one of the more common themes is that of the flock of sheep led to the base of the mountain to graze and the fear the shepherds have of losing them to wolves that inhabit the area, as in the following piece:
Fate la nanna che è passato il lupo
Le meglio pecorelle s'è mangiato
Ma puccettino mio non l'ha veduto
Fate la nanna che è passato il lupo.
(Gandini, Filastrocche 169) [End Page 203]
[Sleep tight, the wolf has gone by,
The most tender sheep he's eaten, wherever he's been
But my darling he hasn't seen it
Sleep tight, the wolf has gone by]
In this lullaby from Apulia, the baby is entrusted to Saint Nicholas:
Santo Nicola mja
Addormisci lo ninnillo mia
E suonno quando venia
Viene la notte no viene lo dia.
(Gandini, Ambarabà 28)
[My Saint Nicholas,
Lead my little baby to sleep, [End Page 204]
And when sleep finally comes
Make it come during the night, not during the day.]
In Grado, the topic is life at sea:
Dormi bel figio
Che to pare pesca
E zozo in mar
Co' l'inzegno e l'esca
El pensa a 'l to magnar (25)
[Sleep my beautiful son,
Your father's gone fishing
And roams the sea
With bait and with hook
So he can make sure you'll be eating]
In this overview, I shall start with the traditional Italian nursery rhyme's essential characteristic as an instrument that furthers communication between children and their parents. Then, I shall attempt to trace its history, analyzing its evolution in the twentieth century and how, in recent history, these pieces have been accepted, collected or pushed aside and neglected. Finally, I shall analyze some specific genres that have influenced children's literature in Italy: lullabies, nursery rhymes for infants, and counting rhymes, which are used by children for selecting players in a game. 1
Communication and Relationships: Maybe the Nursery Rhymes . . .
Na, na, na Pite, pitelle
mamma lu tene e lu vo' cantà
Nina', nina', pipin cadai . . . Totò, totò, mosseta
This playful repetition of syllables and sounds represents the beginnings of verbal interaction between mother and child and an early stage of the development of language. One hypothesis is that the musical and poetic forms developed in a specific culture stem directly from our need to communicate our emotions dynamically, and that this ability is inborn. 2 It is significant, in fact, that newborns are soon able to actively participate in the communication of sounds during moments of intimate exchange with attentive adults. This ability permits the child to perceive the parents' communicative signals and, at the same time, to elicit them.
The mother usually starts this form of communication by repeating short words, separated by regular pauses, and in a simple singsong [End Page 205] intonation, with a resonant but relaxed and soft voice, slightly high-pitched (Stern et al. 727-35). This style of vocalization is called motherese (parentese) or infant directed speech. Motherese demands complete attention on the part of the child and represents an intensely pleasurable experience for both parent and newborn. The kind of response generated by this vocalization varies with age, conditions, motivation and emotions of both parent and child. Mother and child listen to each other's sounds, giving life to cooperative vocalization patterns. By vocalizing in agreement with the mother's rhythm, together they create a succession of sounds with a musical logic. Both will fine tune their performance based on the other's sequence, rhythm, volume and voice timbre (Malloch et al. 495-500).
Communication between parents and very young children tends to extend the musical and poetic vocalizations that often come in the guise of songs without words, nonsense words or rhythmical, repetitive sounds. The child's guardian (usually the mother), once in tune with the child's rhythms, will often pronounce the first syllables with them and use these first words. Once they start repeating these sounds, they will start forming the first primitive rhymes:
popa, popa, patatina . . .
micio, micio, cicio mio . . .
Later on, the child will experiment in the same way with the first words. These infantile words, now part of the Italian language, are mainly formed by repeating syllables: pappa (food), nanna (night-night), totò (spanking). The intuitive, traditional forms of maternal conversation (little songs, nursery rhymes, and games) offer the child a model of easily predictable "narrative." This narrative helps in creating a familiar lexicon and a beneficial emotional relationship that will in turn aid the cognitive development of the child. It has been noted that mothers will vary the rhythm, the melodic contour and the mood of the game, interacting with the child and influencing the child's response (Malloch et al. 495-500).
Children aged one year or older tend to be already motivated to learn and understand what someone else knows and means. They love receiving the kind of attention that recognizes their motivation, enabling them to develop and act. Children will respond to the quality of the voice and not just the verbal invitation to interact physically or verbally. Jerome Bruner contends that this sharing of knowledge and action is of primary importance and refers to it as "talking with a voice that listens" (12). [End Page 206]
What Is the Story of the Nursery Rhyme?
Considering how important voice and rhythm are in the first interactions between mother and child, it is entirely plausible to assert that some kinds of nursery rhymes have always been in existence. There is, unfortunately, very little historical evidence left. One such is the reference to lullabies made by Perseus Flaccus (34-62) in the first century A.D.:
. . . quae infantibus, ut dormiant, solent dicere saepe: lalla, lalla, lalla, aut dormi. aut lacta . . . (57)
and in Ausonius's (d. ca. 395) writings in the fourth century:
. . . this son of yours, flower amongst Romolus' flowers, can learn to know the fables and singsongs sung to him by the wet-nurse; having fun and learning at the same time . . . (722-23)
To find other references, we could follow the studies on the deformation and transformation of magic incantations into lullabies, nursery rhymes and counting rhymes. One of these studies deals in particular with a rhyme transcribed in the fifth century: "Animula vagula blandula" (Leland 113). This rhyme—attributed to the Emperor Hadrian by a biographer who criticizes the ability of the composer—has been redefined, through the use of extensive documentation, as a construction typical of incantations and nursery rhymes.
This study shows how many incantations became, in time, nursery rhymes. The following one is meant to cure the hiccups in children:
Singhiozzo singhiozzo
Albero mozzo
Vite tagliata
Vattene a casa
(Gandini, Ambarabà 108)
[Hiccups, hiccups
Tree stumps
Cut vines
Go home]
Following the use of nursery rhymes through time, we come upon this lullaby in post-classical Latin:
Dormi Jesus Mater ridet (Barb 16)
And the game played by Gargantua, as narrated by Rabelais: [End Page 207]
Pille, nade, jaque, fora, (Chap. XXII, line 1)
which corresponds closely to counting rhymes still in use today, like:
Pipilen
Zich
Fora (Gandini, Ambarabà 23)
Recent studies 3 suggest that the concept of infancy itself, at least in Europe, originates at the beginning of the fifteenth century, becoming the norm in the eighteenth century. As a consequence of changes in fashion and morality, practices normally seen as part of the adult world are relegated to the lives of children. This change is especially obvious in fairy tales and games, which, from pastimes common to people of all age groups, become part of infancy as a distinct class and group. While the period in which the concept of infancy was created is still being debated, it is evident that infancy as a separate class of individuals is a luxury born of today's bourgeoisie. This hypothesis has been confirmed by anthropological studies, 4 which show that, in traditional societies, children's care does not take place as an activity in a separate and relevant time and space in the adult's life. Certainly it does not rise above the necessary time and effort invested in the children's survival and good health. All social knowledge comes through the interaction in communal activities; children and adults divide everything in their daily lives, from food, sleep and work, to ritual, myths, and games.
Nursery rhymes collected during the nineteenth century and those still in use today could then be the result of various components: rhymes which originated from baby talk and from the fundamental verbal communication that takes place between mother and child or parents and child, and rhymes which evolved from magical incantations, exorcisms and sacred and profane popular songs from the adult world. We can also theorize that this initial body of nursery rhymes started developing significantly during the seventeenth century in concert with the transformation of fairy tales and games from adult concerns to children's heritage. In a Laurentian codex of the fourteenth century, we can see an example of another source of nursery rhymes, that of popular and art songs, in this case a rhyme that lists some antonyms:
Uno due e tre
e lo papa non è lo re
lo re non è papa
(D'Ancona 25) [End Page 208]
[One two and three
The Pope is not the King
And the King is not the Pope]
From the documents gathered in the nineteenth century, we know that, at that time, this same nursery rhyme had become part of children's patrimony in different regions.
Uno due e tre
Il papa non è re
Il re non è papa
La chioccia non è lumaca
La lumaca non è chioccia
Candela non è torcia
Torcia non è candela
Il giorno non è sera
La sera non è mattina
(Gandini, Ambarabà 215)
[One two three
The Pope is not the King
The King is not the Pope
The chicken is not the snail
The snail is not the chicken
The candle is not the torch
The torch is not the candle
The day is not the eve
The eve is not the morn]
The increment of rhymes with an obvious pedagogical intent probably started in this period, when the dominant class recognized the need to transmit to children its accepted values. There is, however, an important exception: the additions made by their intended target audience, the children themselves. Now that children are less involved in the adults' life, they tend to create a culture of their own. By adding to the body of nursery rhymes brought to them by adults and other children, the children create a world that is only partially modeled on the adult world and is in part a reaction to that same world.
The Collection of Nursery Rhymes, and Adult Interest in this Italian Patrimony
The first book of nursery rhymes, Tommy Thumbs Pretty Song Book, was published in England in 1744 (Opie and Opie vi). In Italy, the first [End Page 209] collections of folk poetry that included nursery rhymes were published between 1848 and 1877. 5 From these dates on, and from 1877, in particular, with Corrazzini's anthology, 6 this kind of composition starts to be considered more seriously. After this period, many of the anthologies of popular poetry, which are regional or even local, include a section dedicated to nursery rhymes, while some of the volumes published feature this form of popular poetry exclusively.
The diffusion of lullabies, nursery rhymes and counting rhymes at the end of the nineteenth century and at the beginning of the twentieth is easily seen by the number of anthologies produced in this period. In 1937, Saverio La Sorsa published an informative and rich collection of Italian children's games, giving many examples of nursery rhymes from various regions. After this period, while nursery rhymes continue being published in children's encyclopedias and in elementary schoolbooks, the interest of scholars wanes. In 1955, Pasolini published his Canzoniere italiano, in which he again presents some of this poetry, but he also conveys a sense of unease and perplexity.
Another aspect of the unease that nursery rhymes seem to induce comes from their didactic use in kindergartens, which made children memorize and repeat these game rhymes and short songs. These rhymes, which initially came from the spontaneity of invention between children and adults, became lifeless in a game "directed" by adults. By doing this, they were, in a sense, trying to make the children themselves "childish." As a consequence, many innovative educators looked with suspicion upon these traditional rhymes, seeing them as used up and spent.
It was only in the 1970s that a resurgence of interest in traditional nursery rhymes came as part of a "folk revival." Many new collections of popular songs were published in this period, many of them with sections on children's songs and nursery rhymes from the whole Italian peninsula, recorded directly from children in school. 7 Always in school, there has been some experimentation with the reintroduction of nursery rhymes in dialect. This folk revival of the 1970s, and the 1980s, has also seen singers and musicians create great shows and recordings that give ample space to nursery rhymes and lullabies. In 1973 Roberto Leydi wrote: "These songs are a testimony to the passage from the spoken word to song, which represents an object of primary importance in the study of popular forms of communication" (38-39). He then adds: "These songs also reveal the psychological situations and the formative techniques that represent the traditional society in a state of autonomy and cultural specificity, not always traceable with our modern repertoire of communication techniques and, as such, less tied to a basic functionality" (38-39). [End Page 210]
The transformation of an agrarian society, with its farmers and artisans, into an industrial one, together with emigration, urbanization, deterioration of the patriarchal family, which had sole trust of the children's education, introduction of puericulture and compulsory schooling, slowly undermined the spread of nursery rhymes. It is apparent that periods of folk revival tend to direct the attention to practices that are slowly disappearing. Lullabies, singsongs, and nursery rhymes have mainly served as education and socialization tools and have been passed on to successive generations of women or used and passed on by children, once independent of adult supervision. Leydi concludes that lullabies, nursery rhymes, and games are instruments of acculturation in traditional societies with an agrarian economy.
While some popular children's poetry has disappeared from common use, other lullabies, nursery rhymes, and counting rhymes have survived. We can examine some of the reasons for their continued existence. The survival of these nursery rhymes is due to many factors: on one hand, women have not gladly relinquished the traditional role of handing down the traditional techniques of childrearing from mother to daughter, nursery rhymes included. On the other hand, the work done both during the folk music revival, with new collections being published, and with the reintroduction of this material in the schools, has finally yielded some results.
Studies made in the 1990s present an in-depth analysis of structure and content and highlight the possibility of introducing elementary school students to writing poetry and composing nursery rhymes. 8
Lullabies
By examining the text of lullabies and listening to those handed down from mother to daughter, still in use to this day, we can find those fundamental elements of voice and melody that communicate a mother's tenderness to the child. A closer look reveals that these texts are not always intended for the child. Sometimes there is a strange discordance between text and melody. While the melody is sweet or melancholy and serves to appease the child, the words are infused with sadness. The rhythm that accompanies the lullaby and serves to rock the child to sleep also soothes the mother. In some cases, the words seem only to help the mother vent her frustrations. Some of these texts express resentment toward the father for being away or for avoiding his responsibilities. Others express the deep weariness at the end of a long day, or the fatigue caused by the time needed to rock the baby to sleep. They sound like [End Page 211] protests or reflections on the condition of women, protests that can find a voice in lullabies. For example, the more or less conscious desire to free herself of the baby, if only for a little while, entrusting him/her to ambivalent—if not outright destructive—characters gets channeled in the safe outlet of song. To this day, this is the most common lullaby in Italy:
Ninna nanna, ninna-oh
Questo bimbo a chi lo do
Se lo do alla Befana
Me lo tiene una settimana
Se do al Bobo Nero
Me lo tiene un anno intero
Se lo do al Bobo Bianco
Me lo tiene tanto tanto
Ninna nanna ninna oh-
Questo bimbo a chi lo do.
(Gandini, Ninnenanne 41)
[Lullaby, oh lullaby
Whom will I give this baby to?
If I give him to the old witch
She will keep him for a week
If I give him to the Black Booboo
He will keep him for a full year
If I give him to White Booboo
He will keep him for a long, long time
Lullaby, oh lullaby
Whom will I give this baby to?]
Another lullaby, collected in the past, contains a clear example of protest and despair:
Povera me, povera me,
Ho due figli e mo' n'ho tre
E già che ci combatto
Mi pare proprio d'averne quattro
E già che gli fo il pancotto
Mi pare proprio di averne otto
Povera me, povera me
Ho due figlie mo n'ho tre.
(Saffiotti 68)
[Woe is me, Woe is me
Two babies I had but now it's three
And even now I fight them [End Page 212]
I feel like it's four of them
And since I'm making pudding
I feel like I have eight of them
Woe is me, woe is me
I have two daughters but now it's three]
In some lullabies, there is even an explicitly expressed threat to the baby's own survival:
Fa la nanna piccolo mio
Sta contento che sei piccino
Se tu mangi crescerai
E se campi piangerai.
(Saffiotti 66)
[Sleep tight my little son
Be happy that you're small
If you eat, you will grow
If you survive, you will cry.]
In other texts, it is evident how the mother is trying to prepare herself for the possibility, not so rare in the past, of the premature death of the baby she is rocking to sleep. With such a possibility in mind, she tries to find solace, according to her religious precepts, by dedicating another potential soul to heaven. The famous poet Federico Garcia Lorca noted this sadness and bitterness in the lullabies of another Latin country, Spain (48-65). Alan Lomax also saw this in the songs of Sicily (17-18).
Che tu sia benedetta da Maria
Un prete e un chierico che ti portan via
E ti portan a un campetto santo
Co' na crocetta in man vestita di bianco
Vestita di bianco e tutta a fiocchetti
Sulla tua culla quattro bei mazzetti
(Saffiotti 57)
[May the Virgin Mary bless you
A priest and a cleric are taking you away
And they will take you to a small cemetery
With a small cross in your hand, dressed in white
Dressed in white, and full of little bows
On your cradle four little bouquets.]
This tendency to threaten the baby so clearly, or these fears of a premature death, are all part of a past that has left little trace in today's culture. [End Page 213]
Nursery Rhymes for Small Children
It is useful, as well as a source of consolation, to take into consideration what the traditional ritual of repeating nursery rhymes is, since each detail is important for the creation of a happy interaction between parent and child. The essential elements are physical contact, sound (words, singsong or song), tone, rhythmic movements, gestures, the stare's focus and the face's expression. The adult holds the baby on her knees, pronouncing words rhythmically, articulating them or humming them, rocks the child and herself, or has the child bouncing on her knees while she holds him by the arms. These actions produce a rhythmical stimulus throughout the baby's body, helping him to focus on the adult's face and lips as they repeat the nursery rhyme.
Repetition creates a reassuring sense of familiarity, making the child ask for the same rhymes over and over again. First the child will learn the rhythm and the sound, slowly learning the words and, for adults who have the happy intuition of pausing at key moments, the child will supply the right words when there are gaps in the narration. In addition to the pleasure of learning new words, the child receives oral gratification by repeating the nursery rhyme.
Nursery rhymes often teach through funny plays on words, made clear by the accompanying gestures. The adult guides the child's gestures and involves him in making movements that improve his coordination and his body image.
Fronte spaziosa
Occhi barabani
Campanellin
Sgranapagnotte
Botticella del vin
Sparacannoncin!
(Gandini, Ninnenanne 90)
[Wide forehead
naughty eyes
Tinkerbell
Breadmuncher
Wine barrel
Little cannon]
Some of the rhymes that appear to be intended for teaching emotional control—that maybe are used to reveal or relieve, like some lullabies, unvoiced destructive desires on the part of the mother or the child— [End Page 214] include frightening sentences or sudden shifts or a temporary withdrawal of physical support. This may be terrifying, but the mother's loving arms, ready to grab and encircle, the playful tone of voice and the tender expression all counterbalance the effect. This way, the child is reassured and helped to overcome the difficult moment. Through repetition, the child learns also to control his fears, and eagerly anticipates the key moments when the adult makes him "fly" or pretends to drop him.
Trotta trotta cavallotto
L'asinello va di trotto
Passa il monte
Passa la valle
Il popo va a cavallo
Il cavallo fa la volta
E il mio popo la giravolta
(Gandini, Ninnenanne 107)
[Hoppity hoppity little horse
The donkey is trotting
It passes the mountain
It passes the valley
The baby goes horseback riding
The horse turns around
My baby spins around]
The oral transmission of nursery rhymes is based on the extraordinary memory of young children, who cannot read, and it is facilitated by the association with games that teach or exercise motor control. The first games of this type are taught by mothers and grandmothers, who are the first educators and, from necessity, the most stable and traditional element of our society.
Fathers and grandfathers, on the other hand, rarely assume this role and in general only if the games require a more energetic approach. The experience of countless generations of mothers discovered—centuries before the development of education psychology—the pedagogic expedient of associating play with learning. These rhymes are the result of the continuous interaction between the "educational" purpose of the mother and the potentiality for comprehension and assimilation of the child. The rhymes have been smoothed out and adapted to the child's capabilities. These rhymes are the end result of the collaboration between the adult's creativity and the child's imagination and present an amazing variety of rhythms, sounds and associations of words. [End Page 215]
Lunedì chiusin chiusino
Martedì bucò l'ovino
Sgusciò fuori mercoledì
Pio pio fa il giovedì
Venerdì fa un volettino
Beccò sabato un granino
La Doménica mattina
Avea già la sua crestina
(Gandini, Ambarabà 192)
[On Monday it was still closed,
On Tuesday it made a little hole
On Wednesday it came out
On Thursday it said chip chip
On Friday it fluttered around
On Saturday it pecked a little grain
On Sunday it already had its comb]
Nursery rhymes are an excellent means of communication between adults and preschool and kindergarten children. They contribute to the establishment of that almost magical feeling of intimacy that constitutes the best part of the relationship between different generations and they are easy to recite and remember, thanks to the rhythm and rhyming.
Counting Rhymes and Rhymes Used in Play
Once they become autonomous, children have a tendency to gather in groups, in small and closed societies or play communities, regulated by strict rules. Their games offer a model of socialization through ritual that is often expressed by reciting rhymes or counting rhymes and that assumes, especially for the younger children, the role of an initiation.
Counting rhymes are among today's most widely-used rhymes, thanks to their functionality, correlated to the process of selection indispensable to begin certain types of games. They are part of childhood culture and adult memories. For this reason, they have been the subjects of countless studies and collections all over the world. 9
Counting rhymes still have traces of ancient exorcisms and incantations, include frequent historical references and are part of a play ritual common to different cultures. This ritual is based on ancient models, when the rules and norms of a society were transmitted orally through myths and rituals, according to certain conditions, reaffirming the magical quality of words and gestures. [End Page 216]
Counting rhymes allow an escape from reality through the use of nonexistent or absurd words, which are somehow magical, sacred, and secretive. They also allow uncontrolled verbal activity, responding to the desire for acquiring a verbal competency, and "onomatopoeia, strange enumeration, imitation, subconscious play with sounds, and metric's periodicity all give to this child's improvisations an eternal and profound meaning" (Goldstein 121).
Ai bai
tu mi stai
tie mie
compagnie
San Miraco
tico taco
ai bai e buf
(Gandini, Ambarabà 286)
Rhymes used in play by autonomous children have the function of socialization and initiation into the group. They change with the changes in the game, absorbing contemporary events and characters that strike children's imagination, and are transmitted through the secret channels of child's communication. It is interesting to note the appearance in counting rhymes from the late 1970s of Rita Pavone (an Italian singer/actress) and, in the 1980s, of Pelè (the Brazilian soccer player) and Gimondi (the Italian bicyclist).
Oh Pelè che sai giocare
Quanti goal potrai segnare
Potrai segnarne ventitré
Uno due e tre
(Stai fuori te)
(Gandini, Aghin go 23)
[Oh Pelè who can play
How many goals are you to score?
You will score twenty-three
One, two, three
(out you go)]
Arriva Gimondi
Con gli occhi rotondi
La testa quadrata
La bici scassata
(Gandini, Aghin go 29) [End Page 217]
[Here comes Gimondi
With round eyes
With a square head
With a broken bike]
It is easy to understand why nonsensical and irreverent rhymes become part of a child's patrimony and are still passed on. For a child, the purpose of playing is to practice his/her acquired knowledge or abilities. The more assured he or she is of the correct relationship and order of things, the more pleasure he or she experiences in violating this order in play. Many rhymes seem to originate from a desire to wreak havoc in the experiences that constitute the child's world; others are real nonsense. Children are aware of this and appreciate their humor for this very reason. The lack of logic does not interfere with their ability to navigate their world. Rather, it reinforces their perception of reality and of what they know. Furthermore, children seem to feel a definite aversion to the established order imposed by adults, with no regard toward their needs. They express their protest through a tendency to completely reverse this order in their games. The irony and sense of humor present in many nursery rhymes respond to the children's need for a laugh, a need that is essential for a harmonious emotional and critical development.
Carlo Magno re di Spagna
Va nell'acqua e non si bagna
Va nel fuoco e poi si lancia
Carlo Magno re di Francia
(Gandini, Aghin go 11)
[Charlemagne king of Spain
Goes in the water and doesn't get wet
Goes in the fire and then he jumps
Charlemagne king of France]
Oro dormia
Passò da casa mia
Inciampò in una ciabatta
E diventò di latta
Picchiò in un portone
E diventò d'ottone
Passò da ponte vecchio
E tornò via
(Gandini, Ambarabà 217) [End Page 218]
[Oro was sleeping
He stopped at my house
He stumbled in a slipper
He became a tin-man
He knocked a door
He became a brass-man
He stopped at old bridge
He then went away]
Children also love to compose their own nonsense rhymes and are really good at mimicking famous jingles or songs:
Sandokan, mort de fam . . .
[Sandokan, you bum . . . ]
(Gandini, Ambarabà 217)
Coca cola è
è la chiave del cesso che è caduta nel fosso . . .
[Coca-Cola is
is the key of the restroom that fell in the ditch]
The most common (and uncharitable) improvisations are rhymes that make fun of people's names:
Giovanni, leccati i panni . . .
[Rhodes, lick your clothes]
Lella, manico della padella . . .
[Lella, the pan's handle]
Maria Cristina, Maria cretina . . .
[Mary Christine, Mary cretin]
The majority of these folk children's poems are full of a sense of humor, irony, and levity and teach us that they are necessary for the child to overcome his anxieties and to become confident in everyday life.
Translated by Simonetta Sambrotta
Lella Gandini is Adjunct Professor in the School of Education at the University of Massachusetts, and the liaison for the dissemination of the Reggio Emilia approach in the United States. Among her publications on traditional nursery rhymes in Italy are Ambarabà (1979), Aghin go (1996), and Ninnenanne e Tiritere (1998). She is co-editor, with Carolyn Edwards and George Forman, of The Hundred Languages of Children: The Reggio Emilia Approach to Early Childhood Education (1998).
Notes
1. Part of my essay, extensively modified and updated, comes from my introduction to Ambarabà.
2. See Trevarthen.
3. See Ariès, De Mause, and Saraceno. The date for the formation of the concept of childhood has been in great dispute ever since the publication of Ladurie's Montaillou in 1979. The problem (with a focus on the image of childhood in folklore) has been studied in depth by Schmitt.
4. See Whiting and Child.
5. See Dalmedico, as well as Comparetti and D'Ancona. In particular, nursery rhymes can be found in Ferraro, and Casetti and Imbriani.
6. See Corazzini.
7. See Lumbroso, Conte, cantilene, e filastrocche and Giochi descritti e illustrati; see also Gandini, Conte popolari.
8. See Lapucci, Goi, and Morani.
9. See Bolton.
Works Cited
Ariès, Philippe. Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life. New York: Knopf, 1962.
Aulus Perseus Flaccus. Saturae. Ed. Nino Scivoletto. Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1956.
Barb, A.A. "Animula Vagula Vlandula: Notes on Jingles, Nursery Rhymes and Charms." Folklore 61-2 (1950-51): 16.
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