Collodi, The Cricket in Le avventure di Pinocchio
and
Charles Dickens's The Cricket on the Hearth.
John G. Stoffolano Jr., University of Massachusetts-Amherst,
MA 01003 <stoff@umass.edu>
The Adventures of Pinocchio
The Cricket on the Hearth
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The forgotten cricket connection between Dickens and Collodi
Very few papers have been published on the cricket connection between these two authors.
The main focus of this paper is to examine the literature to see where both authors might have
obtained their ideas about using a cricket in their respective stories and, to compare how the two
authors used the cricket in their own work. Also, an attempt is made to show that both Dickens
and Collodi got some of their ideas from other sources and that Collodi may have even borrowed
some of his ideas from Dickens.
Is there any evidence that Dickens obtained his idea for his book, The Cricket
on the Hearth, elsewhere?
Charles Dickens was an extremely well read writer and traveled extensively, especially to
Italy where he spent a considerable amount of time (1844). He even studied Italian (Carlton,
1965). Upon his return to England in 1845 he wrote The Cricket on the Hearth (1845), which
was followed by Pictures from Italy (1846). In 1856, The Cricket on the Hearth was translated
into Italian and Collodi, also a well-read writer, would have seen how Dickens used the cricket in
his novella. But, where did Dickens get the idea for using a cricket? In his book, Pictures from
Italy, Dickens fails to mention a cricket, even though he included other insects in the book.
During his visit, he spent time in Florence where Collodi lived (i.e., the home of Il grillo del
focolare). Without a doubt, Dickens knew many of the writers during his lifetime, if not their
writings, and read most works by earlier authors.
It is well known that house crickets are cheery and a sign of good luck, both of which stems
from the male’s cherry ‘song’. The following writers used the house cricket in their writings:
Shakespeare, Milton, Cowper and Rogers - all of whom Dickens would have been very familiar
with.
One of those individuals was William Cowper (1731-1800) who wrote a popular poem
entitled,
The Cricket
Little inmate, full of mirth,
Chirping on my kitchen hearth,
Whereso'er be thine abode,
Always harbinger of good,
Pay me for thy warm retreat
With a song more soft and sweet;
In return thou shall receive
Such a strain as I can give.
One could ask if Dickens knew about Cowper and his Cricket poem. The answer is yes. To
many of the writers of the time it was important to be buried or honored in Westminster Abbey
Church. Dickens is buried there. What about Cowper? In The Eclectic Magazine: Foreign
Literature, vol. 17 by John Holmes Agnew on page 141 is a very interesting article by Reverend
George Gilfillan. In the article he states, “We now saw perhaps the greatest curiosity in the place.
It was a letter of Charles Dickens’s, ‘by which hangs’ the following tale: Mr. Adam White, of the
Museum (in the insect department), has for some time past busied himself in organizing a
subscription for the erection of a monument to Cowper, in Westminster Abbey.” Surely Mr.
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White’s desire as an entomologist was based on Cowper’s poem The Cricket. White was asking a
small fee to support the erection of a monument to Cowper in Westminster Abbey. Wordsworth
subscribed to the scheme, but Dickens did not. “His (sic Dickens) reply stated, first, that he could
not subscribe, because there were poets superior to Cowper excluded from the abbey…” There is
little doubt that Dickens didn’t know Cowper. It is also difficult to imagine that Dickens hadn’t
read Cowper’s cricket poem.
Is there any evidence that Collodi obtained some of his ideas elsewhere?
Collodi was well read and as Marcheschi (1995) notes, “He was very familiar with the
eighteenth-century English literature” and probably earlier works such as Shakespeare and those
quoted above where the cricket was used as a metaphor or symbol. Stella (2000) provides the
most convincing evidence that Collodi borrowed ideas from Dickens.
Maria Stella’s 2000 paper connecting Collodi and Dickens
Stella (2000) makes a very convincing case that Collodi took literary privileges and
borrowed a considerable amount from Dickens’s Great Expectation for his Pinocchio, who she
said was modeled after Pip. The rhetoric used, traits of both Pip and Pinocchio, and overall
dialogue of both stories demonstrates the intertextuality used by both authors. As noted by Stella,
most of Collodi’s library and letters were destroyed making it rather difficult to make direct
connections between the writings of the two authors. In her paper, Stella notes that a few other
critics made connections between the writings of the two authors (Hazard in 1914, Girgetti and
Bernard in 1989, and Marcheschi in 1995). In her article, Stella’s main focus for comparing the
two writers was based on Dickens’s Great Expectation and Collodi’s Pinocchio. She does briefly
mention the cricket on page 312: “An example of the authors’s reworking of similar fairy-tale
motifs is the cricket, present in the very title of Dicken’s story The Cricket on the Hearth and
central to the Adventures of Pinocchio’s development.”
The cricket in The Cricket on the Hearth (1945)
In his book, which he wrote when he was 34, Dickens describes a “…little waxy-faced Dutch
clock in the corner…” of the room. Also in the room is a real hearth with a Kettle, once correctly
placed by Mrs. Peerybingle and when heated up, began ‘singing’ merrily. Soon to join in the
competition of ‘who could sing the loudest’ was a competing Cricket, also merrily ‘singing’ or
Chirrup, Chirrup, Chirrup but, on the real hearth.
The talking cricket or Grillo parlante in Collodi’s Le Avventure Di Pinocchio
(book, 1883)(serial 1881-1882)
Unlike the real Cricket and the ‘quarrelsome and idiot’ of a steaming Kettle in The Cricket on
the Hearth, Collodi uses the same imagery as Dickens; but, being so poor as Geppetto, the image
of the hearth and steaming kettle was not real, but was painted on the wall. It wasn’t long before
Pinocchio encounters what he considers the intruder in his room and that was Grillo-parlante or
the Talking Cricket.
Parella (1991) on pg. 97 provides the following translation from the original Pinocchio story.
“At the back wall you could see a fireplace
with a fire burning; but it was a painted fire,
and along with the fire there was painted a
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kettle that boiled merrily and sent up a
cloud of steam that really looked like steam.”
Could Collodi have borrowed the idea of using a painting on the wall from Dickens or was it
his association with Italian frescoes that, in addition to Geppetto being poor, caused him to use a
painting instead of a real fire and hearth? How Collodi might have used these bits of information
from Dickens’s hearth setting is only conjecture. Also, was the real hearth, a kettle steaming, and
a real cricket on the hearth really that common or part of the Italian custom of the day? Did
Collodi publish anything that would indicate he was interested in nature or did he associate with
many other of the living organisms found in nature? As a youth, Collodi surely went to the
cricket festival in Florence celebrating the Ascension, or Calendimaggio. Attending Feste da
Grillo, which is held in Cascine Park in Florence, was a day in which young children would be
given a field cricket to put into a cage to take home to watch and listen to their ‘song’. This
experiential bit of information obtained as a youth and, tucked away in the right hemisphere of
Collodi’s brain, could have surfaced when he read Dickens’s The Cricket on the Hearth and
when he started writing the cricket into his Pinocchio story. If this was an important event in his
life, Collodi knew the difference between field and house crickets and selecting a hearth for his
story and the cricket might have been borrowed from Dickens.
HOW DO DICKENS/COLLODI DIFFER/SAME IN THEIR USE OF THE CRICKET?
1. Setting the stage for the book or the initial setting of the hearth, the steaming kettle, and the
Cricket.
Both Dickens and Collodi place the Cricket on or near the hearth and near the steaming kettle.
For Dickens, however, these items were real, but for Collodi’s Pinocchio they were painted on
the wall. The similarity of the scene featuring a hearth, a steaming kettle, both of which attracted
the Cricket suggests that Collodi might have borrowed the idea from Dickens. In personal
correspondence with Professor Baccetti, an Italian expert on crickets, he pointed out that in Italy,
Acheta domesticus is known as Grillo del Focolare, which means “the cricket of the hearth,
fireplace, or house.” Baccetti also said that Geppetto, the father of Pinocchio, was so poor that he
had no wood or fire place. Instead, Geppetto painted a fireplace on the wall, and as Baccetti also
said, “Evidently Grillo-parlante was influenced by the art of Geppetto, and was climbing the wall
in the correct place.” Was Collodi’s use of a painting, rather than the real thing, because he was
familiar with the wide use of frescoes in Italy versus England, or did he really intend it to reflect
Geppettos being so poor that he couldn’t afford a real hearth, etc.? One questions this because
certainly Geppetto had to heat his house someway and, there is no mention of an alternative in
the story or was there? In chapter V he states, “Detto fatto, pose un tegamino sopra un caldano
pieno di brace accesa: …” and in chapter VI “And there he fell asleep; and while he slept his
feet, which were made of wood, caught fire and little by little burned and turned to ashes.” Why
did Geppetto have a brazier in his home other than to heat it? This raises the question as to why
did he also have a false hearth? Dickens gives front billing to the Cricket and his comfortable
habitat, whereas Collodi waits to introduce the Cricket and, in fact, really doesn’t give the
Cricket center stage.
2. Do both authors know whether the Cricket was male or female?
I am not sure what was known about the sex of a house Cricket at the time of their writing,
but based on what is said in the story, they both got it correct. Dickens realized that the ‘singing’
or chirping Cricket is always a male. On pg. 17, he writes, “…his fireside song of comfort,…”
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and on pg. 53, “…that Genius of his Hearth and Home…” indicating he knew which sex (i.e.,
using his) did the ‘singing’. Collodi also recognized this because on pgs. 109, 111, 125, 163, 175
and 195 of Parella translation (2005) he refers to the masculine and in one place states, “…For
your information, said the Talking Cricket with his usual calm.”
3. How was the Cricket treated or given front stage by the two authors?
In The Cricket on the Hearth, the Cricket starts off as being a friendly welcome guest to the
house hold, sharing the hearth and life of those in the story. On pg. 251, Dickens writes, “And it’s
sure to bring us good fortune, John! It always has done so. To have a Cricket on the Hearth is the
luckiest thing in all the world.” Also, on pg. 27 he writes, “This has been a happy a happy home,
John; and I love the Cricket for its sake! I love it for the many times I have heard it, and the
many thoughts its harmless music has given me.”
Being a welcome guest to the household changes and on pg. 30 Dickens writes, “The Cricket,
too, had stopped (sic Here the Cricket is prognosticating the end of a cheerful household).
Somehow the room was not so cheerful as it had been. Nothing like it.”
House Crickets are considered good luck and are not harmed or killed. This is expressed in
the poem of Christina Rossetti (1830-1894), a political exile in England from Vasto, Abruzzo,
Italy, and contemporary of Dickens, when she says, “Hurt no living thing”: “…nor cricket
chirping cheerily.”
Dickens, however, on pgs. 44-45 writes, “Bah! What’s home!” cried Tackleton. “Four walls
and a ceiling! (why don’t you kill that Cricket? I would! I always do. I hate their noise). There
are four walls and a ceiling at my house. Come to me!” “You kill your Crickets, eh?” said John.
“Scrunch ‘em, sir,” returned the other, setting his heel! Heavily on the floor.”
This unusual act presented by Dickens of killing the Cricket (scrunch and kill them) could
have influenced Collodi when Pinocchio, angered over being scolded by the Cricket, picks up a
mallet, throws it at the Cricket and kills him. Dead, squashed against the wall. Collodi also could
have wanted to use the cricket’s spirit for the rest of the story. Stoffolano (2011), however,
discovered that Grillo-parlante was not killed, but survived and produced a lineage, a few of
them eventually immigrating into the United States (thus Tonino is his great, great, great,
grandson). Following his unwelcomed entrance in Collodi’s story, the presumably dead Cricket
later in the story assumes various roles and doesn’t appear as often in the story as does the
Cricket in The Cricket on the Hearth.
4. Reverence to the cricket
In both stories, the authors capitalize Cricket and presumably give their deep respect or
reverence to the Cricket. Here Collodi could be following the usage of Dickens for Cricket, not
cricket (also noted by Stella). The use of the sound Crickets make is one stylistic way, besides
the repetitive three Chirrup, Chirrup, Chirrup in Dickens or ‘the triple modulation’ Crì, Crì, Crì
in Collodi that Stella (2000) uses to link the two authors. Also, being capitalized as Cricket, not
cricket, gives more reverence to its importance in both stories even though the Cricket appears
less often in Pinocchio than in Dickens’s story. Finding an online version of both stories, I
clicked and entered Find for each story and then entered cricket. I then took the size of the file
and calculated what percentage of the file used cricket. Dickens’s story used the word cricket
almost twice that of Collodi. (Dickens 28.6%; 54 hits for cricket divided by 189 KB size file;
Collodi 15.9%; 36 hits for cricket divided by 226 KB size file). This is just one way to determine
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the significance of the Cricket in each author’s story. In fact, if one reads both, they will see that
Collodi’s focus was not just on the Cricket, but he included many other animal characters while
Dickens limited the number of human characters, keeping his focus small.
5. Does the Cricket always remain in the same house or does he go elsewhere?
Throughout the entire story, Dickens places the Cricket always on the hearth of the same
home, the true site and habitat of a house cricket because house crickets generally do not wander
far from their place of origin. Collodi, however, initially starts off with the Cricket walking on
the wall painting of a hearth and kettle, but upon his supposed death, the Cricket reappears and is
found in places other than Geppetto’s house. One specific case is when Pinocchio is in the
woods, gets hanged, and the fairy takes him to her house. Here she sends for “…the most
distinguished doctors…”, one of which included the Talking Cricket. In this case, Collodi has
given the Cricket the qualities of a ghost, spirit, or some say conscience even though some critics
say Collodi did not mean to use him as a conscience of Pinocchio. The only other case where the
Cricket appears before Pinocchio is towards the end of the story when Pinocchio is with his
father and they find an abandoned hut. When they knock on the door a voice inside says, “Turn
the key and the door will open.” As they entered and looked up towards the ceiling they saw on
the wooden joist the Talking Cricket (was he a ‘living’ spirit?).
6. Conscience, counselor, or purveyor of truth
Dickens on pg. 105 writes,“Oh, Shadow on the Hearth! Oh, truthful Cricket! Oh, perfidious
Wife!” and later on pg. 114 writes, “All things that speak the language of your hearth and home,
must plead for her!” returned the Cricket, “For they speak the Truth.” Collodi uses the Cricket
more often as an indicator of being right or speaking the truth. Many times throughout the story,
Pinocchio says, “The Talking Cricket was right,” pgs. 113, 117, 163, 175, and on pg. 447 and on
his last encounter with Pinocchio he says, “You’re right, dear Cricket; you’re more than right,
and I’ll remember the lesson you’ve given me.”
7. The Cricket being wise and sometimes a prognosticator of death, as a ghost, or fairy
It appears to be general knowledge in the literary world that Crickets are wise. Dickens uses
the Cricket as a ghostly and fairy symbol in his story. He writes on pg. 53, “And as he soberly
and thoughtfully puffed at his old pipe; and as the Dutch clock ticked; and as the red fire
gleamed; and as the Cricket chirped; that Genius of his Hearth and Home (for such the Cricket
was) came out, in fairy shape, into the room, and summoned many forms of Home about him?”,
and on pg. 112, “The Cricket on the Hearth came out into the room, and stood in Fairy shape
before him.” While on pg. 54, he writes, “But what was that young figure of a man, which the
same Fairy Cricket set so near Her stool, and which remained there, singly and alone?”, and on
pg. 114. “Fairies came trooping forth. Not to stand beside him as the Cricket did, but to busy and
bestir themselves.”, and finally on pg. 128 he writes, “Staunch Cricket on the Hearth! Loyal
house-hold Fairies!” Later, on pg. 137 Dickens writes, “She had been but a short time in this
passion of regret, when the Cricket on the Hearth, unheard by all but her, began to chirp. Not
merrily, but in a low, faint, sorrowing way. It was so mournful, that her tears began to flow; and
when the Presence which had been beside the Carrier all night, appeared behind her, pointing to
her father, they fell down like rain. She heard the Cricket-voice more plainly soon: and was
conscious, through her blindness, of the Presence hovering about her father.”
Collodi doesn’t confuse the Fairy figure with the Cricket, but on pgs. 171-172 Pinocchio
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notices a glowing tiny creature on a tree trunk and says, “Who are you?” “I am the ghost of the
Talking Cricket,” Answered the tiny creature.” Nowhere else does Collodi use the Cricket as a
ghostly figure.
8. The Cricket as a symbol of festivity, merry being, good luck, and telling the truth
Dickens makes the Crickets entrance early on in the story and one of being welcomed as a
member of the household. Soon the Cricket enters into a ‘singing’ competition with the steaming
kettle. Dickens uses the Cricket as a positive and welcome symbol when he states the following
on the various pages: pg. 25, “And it’s sure to bring us good fortune, John! It always has done
so. To have a Cricket on the Hearth is the luckiest thing in all the world.” On pg. 27, “This has
been a happy a happy home, John; and I love the Cricket for its sake!” and on pg. 27, “I love it
for the many times I have heard it, and the many thoughts its harmless music has given me.”
Collodi doesn’t give the Cricket an early entrance into the story, but waits until chapter IV of
Pinocchio to introduce him. Collodi, however, also makes the cricket’s entrance to the story one
that is not so welcoming, not so merry or festive when the Cricket is confronted by Pinocchio
and the two quarrel over ownership of the room. On pg. 107, Parella’s translation (1991) writes,
“Crick-crick-crick.” “Who’s calling me?” said Pinocchio, thoroughly frightened. “It is I.”
Pinocchio turned around and saw a large Cricket crawling slowly up the wall. “Tell me, Cricket,
just who are you?” “I’m the Talking Cricket, and I’ve lived in this room for over a hundred
years.” “I will not go from here,” replied the Cricket, “without first telling you a great truth.”
Both stories talk about Crickets telling the truth. Dickens on pg. 57 says, “For all the Cricket
Tribe are potent Spirits, even though the people who hold converse with them do not know it
(which is frequently the case); and there are not in the Unseen World, Voices more gentle and
more true; that be so implicitly relied on, or that are so certain to give none but tenderest counsel;
as the Voices in which the Spirits of the Fireside and the Hearth, address themselves to human
kind.”
When pages are given for specific quotes relating to Collodi’s story, they are taken from
Parella’s (2005) edition.
CONCLUDING REMARKS:
An example, Cowper’s cricket poem, has been used to support the fact that Dickens took
literary license and borrowed bits of information from earlier writers, especially characteristics
and superstitions about house crickets. As reported by both Stella and Marcheschi, Collodi surely
borrowed bits of information from Dickens.
It is hoped that this paper will inspire students/professors/etc. of Italian to reinvestigate the
Italian literature of the period prior to and when Collodi was living in hopes of uncovering, not
just his style of writing, but where he obtain some of his ideas as they relate to crickets, as well
as to other unexplored topics.
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References:
Baccetti, B. 1991. Noctulae Orthopterologicae. Osservazioni corologiche su alcuni ortotteri
del centro Italia. Redia 74 (2): 525-532.
Carlton, W. J. 1965. Dickens studies Italian. Dickensian 61: 101-108.
Dickens, C. 1907-15. The Cricket on the Hearth. Henry Altemus Company, Philadelphia, PA.
161 pp.
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Dickens, C. 1998. Pictures from Italy. Penguin Books, 221 pp.
Girgetti, D. and C. Bernardi. 1989. Prima di Pinocchio. Libra tra due secoli. Firenze.
LeMonnier.
Hazard, P. 1914. “Menu, frètillant, virevoltant….”) Revue des deux mondes. Feb. 15th.
Marcheschi, D. 2009. The tradition of humour “humourism” in nineteenth and twentieth
century Europe. JoLIE (Journal of Linguistic and Intercultural Education). 2:2; pp. 187-200.
Marcheschi, D. 1995. “Introduzione”, in Opere, di Carlo Collodi, Milano, Mondadori.
Perella, N. 1991. The adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Colldi. The complete text in a
bilingual edition with the original illustrations. Second printing in 2005. Berkeley: Univ. of
California Press.
Stella, M. 2000. Pip and Pinocchio: Dickensian motifs in Carlo Collodi, pp. 301-317. In:
Dickens: The Craft of Fiction and the Challenges of Reading. Eds. R. Bonadei, C. de Stasio, C.
Pagetti and A. Vescovi. Milan, Italy: Edizioni Unicopli. Proc. Of the Milan Symposium in
Gargnano, Sept. 1998, 350 pp.
Stoffolano, J. G., Jr. 2011. Tonino – The Adventures of a Boy/Cricket from Boston’s North
End. iUniverse, Inc., Bloomington, Indiana, 425 pp.
Acknowledgements: First of all, thanks to Paola Nastri for inviting me to prepare this paper
and present my ideas at the NeMLA, 2014, conference in Harrisburg, PA. Thanks to the
University of Massachusetts in Amherst for a small grant from the Massachusetts Society of
Professors Research Funds (2014) to attend the conference. Thanks for continual support and
providing ideas, reading the various copies of the paper, and critiques on it from Daniela
Marcheschi and her interest in my making a connection between Dickens and Collodi. Thanks to
Roberto Randaccio for also giving me some direction on this topic. Finally, thanks to Natalie
McKnight for providing information and making suggestions on the manuscript.
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