Was Humpty Dumpty Always an Egg?
BrainStuff
iHeartPodcasts
4.0 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 31 August 2023
⏱️ 8 minutes
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Summary
The nursery rhyme about Humpty Dumpty (and his wall, and his fall) is omnipresent. But who (or what) was this guy, really? Learn about the weird history of this verse in today's episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/arts/literature/humpty-dumpty.htm
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio. |
| 0:04.6 | Hey, Brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum here. |
| 0:10.3 | We need to talk about Humpty Dumpty. |
| 0:13.1 | You may well have grown up with this nursery rhyme, but just in case, let's review. |
| 0:17.6 | It goes, Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. |
| 0:22.0 | All the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't put Humpty together again. |
| 0:27.6 | It's a simple verse, but there's a lot going on here. |
| 0:31.2 | Who is this Humpty character? |
| 0:33.3 | Why was he sitting and why did he fall? |
| 0:36.1 | Why on earth was the monarchy involved and why couldn't they put the poor guy back together? |
| 0:41.4 | Furthermore, is he an egg? |
| 0:46.2 | In popular culture today, Humpty Dumpty is almost always portrayed as an anthropomorphic egg. |
| 0:52.0 | He has legs and arms coming off of his large egg body-slash head, |
| 0:56.3 | and he's wearing clothing, but the poem doesn't say that Humpty is an egg. |
| 1:03.0 | The thing is, this poem was probably originally intended to be a riddle. |
| 1:07.6 | If you can't put him back together after a fall, what is he? |
| 1:11.6 | An answer is that he's an egg, which is part and parcel of modern portrayals. |
| 1:16.5 | A spoiler alert? |
| 1:18.2 | Okay, the Humpty Dumpty rhyme first appeared in 1797 |
| 1:23.3 | in a book called Juvenile Amusement, written by one Samuel Arnold. |
| 1:27.9 | In the original, the first two lines were the same, |
| 1:30.2 | but the last two lines read, |
... |
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