“The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God”

Here are links to the Wikipedia entries on J[ohn] Milton Haynes (1884-1940) and “The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God.”

Here’s a link to the text of Haynes’ poem.

A great web resource for texts of this period is Make ‘Em Laugh (“A Symposium of Jocular Monologues, Humourous Recitations & Whimsical Poetry), compiled by Paul Wilkinson. The monologues of Bransby Williams (1870-1961) (mentioned in the “Hunting the Wild Reciter” post) feature prominently on this site. There is biographical sketch of Williams at Footlight Notes: Images of Theatre and Other Popular Entertainment 1850s-1920s, another excellent web resource.

Hunting the Wild Reciter

Here’s an entertaining introduction to the phenomenon of recitation: “Hunting the Wild Reciter,” a broadcast featuring Peter Kirkpatrick of the University of Western Sydney. The broadcast is from the radio program “Lingua Franca” on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) (unfortunately, the “Listen to this program” link is not working, tsk, tsk ). But there is a transcript on the webpage, and Kirkpatrick brings up some very interesting points. He argues that the ascendancy of recitation as popular social pastime is explained by

“four inter-related factors: the once common practice of reading aloud; the professionalisation of recitation as a performance art, its institutionalisation in education; and, implicated in all of these, the rise of elocution.
[...]
Elocution began as a means of training lawyers and churchmen in public speaking, but by the turn of the 20th century, it had broadened into a powerful middle-class movement concerned to foster proper and ‘natural,’ that is to say, middle-class, speech habits. It was important in facilitating class mobility through the so-called ‘correction’ of working or lower-middle class or provincial accents….”

“And where’s that blasted plain?”

“In Spain! In Spain!”

What I find particularly interesting is Kirkpatrick’s discussion of how the popularity of Victorian recitation created a sub-genre of recitation pieces and performances that parodied reciters, their delivery and their recitations. (The title of Kirkpatrick’s talk is taken from a lampoon by Ernest Francis ‘Kodak’ O’Ferrall [1881-1925]). His talk is prefaced by a 1914 recording of Bransby Williams reciting J. Milton Haynes’ “The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God,” an extremely popular piece. Kirkpatrick describes vaudevillian comedian ‘Mo’ (Roy Rene)‘s use of Haynes’ poem in a comic sketch:

“he endeavoured to recite ‘The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God,’ only to be constantly interrupted by hecklers dressed as ex-Indian Army officers planted in the audience. In frustration, Mo would explode with ‘Oh this is lovely! This is beautiful! A gentleman and a scholar can’t get up to resuscitate an immoral piece of poultry without being got at!’”