Thursday, February 11, 2010
Rejoice in the Lamb?
I was not surprised to learn that Smart wrote this in an asylum. I don't think I have ever been so confused by a poem. However, I have always been terribly confused by "cat people." Whether it is my own imagination or a deliberate technique, Smart's poem captured a strong sentiment of loneliness and isolation. I especially experienced this in the description of the cat. I think the intimate attention to Jeoffry's behavior indicated countless hours of sitting and watching one of the most inactive creatures on the planet. Smart's description of Jeoffry's daily routine encapsulates 24 hours of animation in 74 lines, and half of those lines are simply products of the narrator's imagination. In my opinion, a sincere fascination in this activity suggests endless tedium. I am reluctant to submit this as my interpretation of lines 120-173 because I suspect that "cat people" really love this type of poetry. I bashfully admit that I was greatly exhilarated when the rat bit Jeoffry's throat...
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He uses the description of the cat to suggest a concept about how we prescribe names to pets in a larger poem about the use of language. He ponders the reason he named his cat Jeoffry and in the subsequent description, it becomes clear that the cat is a very close companion of Smart's. This is why he gives it a persons name, and why he chooses to spend a large amount of the poem discussing it.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with your state of mind while reading this poem! I found it crazy and could understand why he wrote it in an asylum. I also loved it when the rat bit his throat!
ReplyDeleteWhen we discussed this poem in class, we mentioned its backward progression. Whereas one might expect Smart's observation of the cat to lead him the philosophical and etymological contemplation of language, Smart inverts this structure; his abstract contemplation of words brings him to the concrete reality of his cat Jeoffry. As we said in class, the structure of the poem is absolutely deliberate. Why? In my mind, as I was reading it, I could almost feel a pyschological impression of insanity. I felt like the poem was lost in a semi-rational fog with fragmented patterns and disjointed conclusions. When Smart moves into the section on the cat, he gives a sense of grasping out of this mist to hold onto something real and defined. As only a section of a longer work, I anticipate a pattern of rising briefly from confusion and falling back into it. I wonder if Smart is actually insane, or doing a fantastic job of portraying it.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your interpretation of the structure of the poem. The sort of casting about outward, dipping into different disciplines, time periods, etc. seemed to me to be a way to invoke the universal nature of his experience, to relate it to every reader at some point, before drawing them into the personal narrative inspired by Jeoffry. By casting it in this way, the poem is not just the individual story of his own cat (which is of limited interest to most of the rest of the world), but a universal experience of language, and how that might relate to the personal.
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