Editing Dr. Seuss (section)

==Style==

===Poetic meters===
Geisel wrote most of his books in [[anapestic tetrameter]], a [[Meter (poetry)|poetic meter]] employed by many poets of the English literary canon. This is often suggested as one of the reasons that Geisel's writing was so well received.<ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Mensch |first1=Betty |last2=Freeman |first2=Alan |title=Getting to Solla Sollew: The Existentialist Politics of Dr. Seuss |year=1987 |magazine=[[Tikkun (magazine)|Tikkun]] |page=30 |quote=In opposition to the conventional—indeed, hegemonic—iambic voice, his metric triplets offer the power of a more primal chant that quickly draws the reader in with relentless repetition.}}</ref><ref name="of-sneetches">{{cite book |editor-last=Fensch |editor-first=Thomas |title=Of Sneetches and Whos and the Good Dr. Seuss |year=1997 |publisher=[[McFarland & Company]] |location=[[Jefferson, North Carolina]] |isbn=978-0-7864-0388-2 |oclc= 37418407}}</ref>

===Artwork===
{{More citations needed|section|date=September 2017}}<!--first part of section has no references-->
[[File:Ted Geisel NYWTS.jpg|thumb|Geisel at work on a drawing of the [[Grinch]] for ''[[How the Grinch Stole Christmas!]]'' in 1957]]

Geisel's early artwork often employed the shaded texture of pencil drawings or [[watercolor]]s, but in his children's books of the postwar period, he generally made use of a starker medium—pen and ink—normally using just black, white, and one or two colors. His later books, such as ''[[The Lorax]],'' used more colors.

Geisel's style was unique—his figures are often "rounded" and somewhat droopy. This is true, for instance, of the faces of [[the Grinch]] and [[the Cat in the Hat]]. Almost all his buildings and machinery were devoid of straight lines when they were drawn, even when he was representing real objects. For example, ''[[If I Ran the Circus]]'' shows a droopy hoisting crane and a droopy [[steam calliope]].

Geisel evidently enjoyed drawing architecturally elaborate objects, and some of his motifs are identifiable with structures in his childhood home of [[Springfield, Massachusetts|Springfield]], including examples such as the [[onion domes]] of its [[:File:Main Street Springfield Mass 1905.jpg|Main Street]] and his family's brewery.<ref>{{cite web|website=Hell's Acres|archive-date=February 19, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190219015335/http://hellsacres.blogspot.com/2015/01/seussified-springfield.html|url=http://hellsacres.blogspot.com/2015/01/seussified-springfield.html|title=Seussified Springfield|date=January 1, 2015}}
* {{cite web|website=Springfield Museums|archive-date=August 19, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160819083645/https://springfieldmuseums.org/press-release/and-to-think-that-he-saw-it-in-springfield/|url=https://springfieldmuseums.org/press-release/and-to-think-that-he-saw-it-in-springfield/|date=August 2, 2011|title=And to Think that He Saw It in Springfield!}}</ref> His endlessly varied but never rectilinear palaces, ramps, platforms, and free-standing stairways are among his most evocative creations. Geisel also drew complex imaginary machines, such as the ''Audio-Telly-O-Tally-O-Count'', from ''[[Dr. Seuss's Sleep Book]]'', or the "most peculiar machine" of Sylvester McMonkey McBean in ''[[The Sneetches]]''. Geisel also liked drawing outlandish arrangements of feathers or fur: for example, the 500th hat of ''[[Bartholomew Cubbins]]'', the tail of ''[[Gertrude McFuzz]]'', and the pet for girls who like to brush and comb, in ''One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish''.

Geisel's illustrations often convey motion vividly. He was fond of a sort of "voilà" gesture in which the hand flips outward and the fingers spread slightly backward with the thumb up. This motion is done by Ish in ''One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish'' when he creates fish (who perform the gesture with their fins), in the introduction of the various acts of ''If I Ran the Circus'', and in the introduction of the "Little Cats" in ''[[The Cat in the Hat Comes Back]]''. He was also fond of drawing hands with interlocked fingers, making it look as though his characters were twiddling their thumbs.

Geisel also follows the [[cartoon]] tradition of showing [[motion lines|motion with lines]], like in the sweeping lines that accompany Sneelock's final dive in ''If I Ran the Circus''. Cartoon lines are also used to illustrate the action of the senses—sight, smell, and hearing—in ''The Big Brag,'' and lines even illustrate "thought", as in the moment when the Grinch conceives his awful plan to ruin Christmas.