Isaac Watts and Lewis Carroll

I really liked this poem:

HOW DOTH THE LITTLE BUSY BEE by Isaac Watts

How doth the little busy Bee
Improve each shining Hour,
And gather Honey all the day
From every opening Flower!

How skilfully she builds her Cell!
How neat she spreads the Wax!
And labours hard to store it well
With the sweet Food she makes.

In Works of Labour or of Skill
I would be busy too:
For Satan finds some Mischief still
For idle Hands to do.

In Books, or Work, or healthful Play
Let my first Years be past,
That I may give for every Day
Some good Account at last. [1715]

SOURCE: http://www.usp.nus.edu.sg/victorian/authors/rands/ajrbion1.html

"How Doth the Little Crocodile" is Lewis Carroll's parody of "How Doth the Little Busy Bee" by Isaac Watts. The Crocodile poem by Lewis Carroll is in his novel, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.


HOW DOTH THE LITTLE CROCODILE
How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!
How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spread his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in
With gently smiling jaws!


"How Doth the Little Crocodile" is a parody of the moralistic poem "Against Idleness And Mischief" by Isaac Watts.[1] Watts' poem begins "How doth the little busy bee," and uses a bee as a model of hard work. In Carroll's parody, the crocodile's corresponding "virtues" are deception and predation, themes which recur throughout Alice's adventures in both books, and especially in the poems.
SOURCE - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Doth_the_Little_Crocodile

Again I am befuddled about why these reacurring themes of deception and predation are so played up in Alice's adventures....a children's story none the less.


In the movie I remember the caterpillar telling Alice the crocodile poem and his smoke illustrates the poem for her:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/53/Alice_05a-1116x1492.jpg/250px-Alice_05a-1116x1492.jpg


http://samuraifrog.blogspot.com/2008/04/evaluating-disney-1951.html