The Spider and the Fly is a poem by Mary Howitt (1799-1888), published in 1828. 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 naïve Fly through the use of seduction and flattery. The poem is a cautionary tale against those who use flattery and charm to disguise their true evil intentions.
The poem was published with the subtitle "A New Version of an Old Story" in The New Year's Gift and Juvenile Souvenir, which has a publication year of 1829 on its title page but, as the title would suggest, was released before New Year's Day and was reviewed in magazines as early as October 1828.
The opening line is one of the most recognized and quoted first lines in all of English verse. Often misquoted as "Step into my parlour" or "Come into my parlour", it 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.
When Lewis Carroll was readying Alice's Adventures Under Ground for publication he replaced a parody he had made of a negro minstrel song with a parody of Howitt's poem. "The Mock Turtle's Song", 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.
Video The Spider and the Fly (poem)
Text
Maps The Spider and the Fly (poem)
Adaptions
1916 film featuring Robert B. Mantell
1949 British crime film
1923 cartoon: theatrical short by Aesop Fables Studio.
1930 song by Barbecue Bob; 1938 song by Fats Waller, Andy Razaf, and J. C. Johnson; 1965 song by The Rolling Stones.
An illustrated version by Tony DiTerlizzi was a 2003 Caldecott Honor Book.
See also
- Cultural depictions of spiders
References
External links
- Text of the poem, along with a Lewis Carroll parody of it
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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