The Spider and the Fly (poem)
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The Spider and the Fly is a poem and cautionary tale by Mary Howitt (1799-1888), published in 1829. The first line of the poem is "'Will you walk into my parlour?' said the Spider to the Fly." The story tells of a cunning Spider who ensnares a naive Fly through the use of seduction and flattery. The tale is a warning against those who use flattery and charm as a front for potential evil.
When Lewis Carroll was readying Alice's Adventures Under Ground for publication he replaced a parody he had made of a negro minstrel song[1] with a parody of Howitt's poem. The "Lobster Quadrille", in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, is a parody of Howitt's poem (it mimics the meter and rhyme scheme, and parodies the first line, but not the subject matter, of the original). [2] Noise rock band The Paper Chase (band) references the poem in their song, "Said the Spider to the Fly".
An illustrated version by Tony DiTerlizzi was a 2003 Caldecott Honor Book.[3]
The opening line "Will you walk into my parlour?", often quoted as "Step into my parlour" or "Come into my parlour", has become an aphorism, often used to indicate a false offer of help or friendship that is in fact a trap. The line has been used and parodied numerous times in various works of fiction.[citation needed] The famous Hutchinson Family Singers performed a version of the poem that was adapted to song by Jesse Hutchinson, Jr.
[edit] References
- ^ Gardner, Martin., The Annotated Alice, 1998
- ^ Lewis Carrols parody of Mary's poem accessed 3 October 2007
- ^ "2003 Caldecott Medal and Honor Books" Association for Library Services to Children. Retrieved October 8, 2007
[edit] External links
- Text of the poem, along with a Lewis Carroll parody of it
