bringing up baby

Here are two modes:

I.

Brown bear, brown bear what do you see
I see a red bird looking at me,

Red bird, red bird what do you see,
I see a yellow duck looking at me.

Yellow duck, yellow duck what do you see,
I see a blue horse looking at me.

etc.

(from Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do you See? Bill Martin, Jr., Henry Holt, NY: 1967)

II.

Moses supposes his toeses are roses,
But Moses supposes erroneously;
For nobody's toeses are posies of roses
As Moses supposes his toeses to be.

(18th century Nursery Rhyme, repopularized by the musical Singing in the Rain)

The first is analytic, the second synthetic.

The first is the result of deciding on what rules make up good learning tools, and then applying those rules to create some verse; the second is the example from which those rules may be derived.

The first reduces rhyming and alliteration to the order of words; the second makes rhyming and alliteration stand on equal terms with the conveyance of meaning.

The first is constative speech, the second lyric.

The first is subordinated to a field of objects arrayed in front of the reader's eyes; the second elevates objects to the ears as music.

The first hammers in its lesson through slight but meaningless variations on a tight logical order; the second seduces by a building up which bursts through with a laugh.

The first uses names, e.g. bear, duck, horse, cat, etc. to stand in for an empty space that has no intrinsic bearing on the logical, geometric vision of who sees what (I see x, x sees y, y sees z); the second requires each word in its meaningfulness without sacrificing the lyric they form.

The first reduces language to words as mere tokens ready to be exchanged for others, also mere placeholders; the second winds meaning in a tuneful rhythm where words convey both object and affect.

The first produces a vision house of mirrors, every vacuous node a viewer and the viewed. Inclusiveness is compelled by constant surveillance. As for the second, if Moses belongs to the set of all somebodies, then his toeses could not be roses. All bodies share an absence (the absence of roses for toeses). Inclusiveness is formed by a laugh.

The first produces an inescapable totality, a terror. The second corrects Moses as to the state of his toeses. We know they are not roses, and we know that Moses' judgment is quirky. But if not roses, of what are Moses' toeses?

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