The Play of Man. Karl Groos
speech, such as a clearly sounded consonant between b and p or b and d, and also the labial brr and m, all of which evidently please the child. It is noteworthy that without exception these sounds are expiratory, and I have never known any attempt to produce similar inspiratory ones.67 In the eleventh month the child began to whisper; he also produced strong, high, and full notes of varying tone, as if he were speaking in a language strange to us. In his monologue a vowel sound would be repeated, sometimes alone, sometimes in a syllable, as many as five times without a pause, but usually three or four times.68 The mechanical repetition of the same syllable such as papapa, occurs oftener than alternation with another, as pata, and the child will frequently stop short when he notices in the midst of his complicated lip and tongue movements and the expansion and contraction of his mouth that such a variation of acoustic effects is being produced. He actually appears to take pleasure in systematically exercising himself in all sorts of symmetric and asymmetric mouth movements, both silently and vocally.”69
Not to prolong this section unduly, I devote only cursory notice to the various voice plays of older children and adults, which may be said to correspond with the lall-monologue of infants and give expression to delight by shouting, whistling, yelling, crowing, humming, smacking, clicking, and the like. An example from the ancients is the “stloppus”: “C’est un amusement qui consiste à enfler see joues et à les faire crever avec explosion en les frappant avec les mains.”70
Another example, which, however, distorts the idea of play and makes it border on the pathological, is given in Boswell’s Life of Johnson: “In the intervals of articulating he made various sounds with his mouth, … sometimes making his tongue play backward from the roof of his mouth, as if clucking like a hen, and sometimes protruding it against his upper gums in front, as if pronouncing quickly, under his breath, loo, too, too; all this accompanied sometimes with a thoughtful look, but more frequently with a smile. Generally, when he had concluded a period in the course of a dispute by which he was a good deal exhausted by violence and vociferation, he used to blow out his breath like a whale.”71
Two specially interesting motives are operative in producing playful voice practice—namely, the stimulus of what is agreeable and the stimulus of difficulty—and these we will find introducing us to the formal side of poetry. The pleasurable stimulus here takes the form of enjoyment of the repetition of like and similar sounds of a particular stress. This pleasure in repetition is a remarkable thing from many points of view; on the motor side there is a tendency to use the original sound as a model for the new one (Baldwin’s circular reaction), while in listening to self-originated tones and sounds primary memory is employed, that lingering of what has been heard in the consciousness which makes it possible to secure harmony of the new note with the previous one. The rhythm which we have been investigating is a simple form of such repetition, and a child will enjoy it in poetry as much as in music. At about the beginning of the fourth year children are often observed to make the attempt to talk in measure and assume the rôle of the productive artist. In general, the result is a senseless succession of words and syllables arranged rhythmically.72 Marie G—— frequently pretended to read such jingles to her dolls. The measure most popular with children seems to be the trochaic.73 This partiality still earlier takes in whole groups of sounds, as the mechanically measured repetition of the lall-monologue bears witness. Perez gives two good examples. “A little girl,” he says, “repeated from morning till night, for fourteen days, toro, toro, toro, or else rapapi, rapapi, rapapi, and took great delight in the monotonous rhythm. Another child, nearly three years old, kept up these refrains in speaking or crying, and would take a great deal of trouble to use them in answering questions, although his parents made every effort to rid him of this vagary. For three months this little parrot continued to repeat in a loud voice the syllables, unintelligible to himself or any one else,74 tabillè, tabillè, tabillè.” R. M. Meyer, who sees in the meaningless refrain the germ of poetry, will find in such extraordinary persistence a confirmation of his view.75 It is difficult to say whether there is not an inherited tendency connected with courtship in the instinctive impulse toward the gratification of such motor and sensor apparatus as is involved in this.
Be that as it may, it is undeniable that the repetition of meaningless rhymes, as well as of reasonable words and passages, is important to poetry as a whole. I would refer in this connection to Grosse’s Beginnings of Art, and for my own part confine myself to selecting a few interesting examples. The first is the chain rhyme, such as always delights a child. The following is from a favourite song of theirs:
“Reben trägt der Weinstock;
Hörner hat der Ziegenbock;
Die Ziegenbock hat Hörner;
Im Wald der wachsen Dörner,
Dörner wachsen im Wald.
Im Winter ist es kalt,
Kalt ist’s im Winter,” etc.
“Vines bear grapes;
Billy-goats have horns;
Horns has the billy-goat;
In the woods grow thorns,
Thorns grow in the woods.
In winter it is cold,
It is cold in winter,” etc.
A negative form is:
“Ein, zwei, drei,
Alt ist nicht neu,
Neu ist nicht alt,
Warm ist nicht kalt,
Kalt ist nicht warm,
Reich ist nicht arm,
Arm ist nicht reich,” etc.
“One, two, three,
Old is not new,
New is not old.
Warm is not cold,
Cold is not warm,
Rich is not poor,
Poor is not rich,” etc.
A chain rhyme which dates back to the fourteenth century has this same echoing effect, and, as Zingerle remarks, “affords a striking proof that the children’s verses of that period had the same form as our own.”76
A striking analogue of this is found in many poems of the Molukken dwellers. They consist of four-lined strophes, whose first and third lines form the second and fourth of each preceding one. This often results in absolutely inconsequent insertions, whose only office is to promote the echo effect and onward77 swing, yet sometimes the thought is well sustained. Here is an instance:
“Jene taube mit ausgebreiteten Flügeln,
Sie fliegt in schräger Lage nach dem Fluss.
Ich bin ein Fremder,
Ich komme hierher in die Verbannung.
“Sie fliegt in schräger Lage nach dem Fluss.
Tot wird sie mitten im Meere aufgefischt.
“Ich komme hierher in die Verbannung,
Weil ich es wegen meiner elenden Lage so will.
“Tot wird sie mitten im Meere aufgefischt,” etc.78
“The dove with wide-spread wings
Flies along the winding stream.
I am a stranger,
I come an exile here.
“She files along the winding stream
And is drawn up dead from the sea.
I come an exile here,
Since that is my bitter fate.
“She