The Tragedy of Humpty Dumpty

Familiar to adults and children alike these simple enigmatic lines constitute one of the most popular of the nursery rhymes. Ample testimony to this fact is found in the frequency with which both the lines and/or the figure appear in the nursery in books, as a doll, and in the easy availability of these articles in all toy shops. That this popularity is not merely ephemeral, local, or just American is attested by "students of linguistics (who) believe that it is one of those pieces of antiquity of which 'is to be measured in thousands of years, or rather, it is so great that it cannot be measured at all.'"1 Rhymes of similar form and motif were found to exist in England, France, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Switzerland, and Germany.2 Having spanned centuries, international boundaries, and many languages, Humpty Dumpty, it would seem, has enjoyed an extensive appeal.

Why this simple tragedy should possess such popularity is something of a mystery. And the answer certainly is not found in the obvious riddle implied within the rhyme itself, since an illustration of the well-known anthropomorphic egg accompanies the words wherever found and thus dispels any allusion to a conundrum by simultaneously supplying the answer (an egg). Indeed, rather than solving the mystery, the answer seems only to add poignancy to it.