‘A cat at pranks’: Christopher Smart’s Protectorate
‘A cat at pranks’: Christopher Smart’s Protectorate1
Let Shephatiah rejoice with the little Owl, which is the
winged Cat.
For I am possessed of a cat, surpassing in beauty, from
whom I take occasion to bless Almighty God. (Fragment B, Line 68)
Jubilate Agno was written by Christopher Smart during his incarceration at a private institution from 1758 – 1763 and remained unpublished until 1939. Smart’s elevated sentinel, Jeoffry, exists to protect and defend Smart’s belief system as he attempts to confront the blossoming Newtonian world. In the poem, Smart establishes Jeoffry as a literary representation of his own education and dexterity of language to combat and withstand a world becoming more secular. Through Jeoffry, Smart corroborates elements of taxonomy and natural science with zealous faith and language to condemn Newton’s theories. Perhaps Jeoffry also offers a sense of security for Smart’s febrile disposition. In Jubilate Agno, Jeoffry becomes a defense mechanism as Christopher Smart strives to uphold his religious convictions as the only path towards true intellectual prosperity.
Jeoffry is generally considered to begin with line 695, “For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.” Though constructs and representations are dynamically layered throughout the poem, it might be more appropriate to place Jeoffry’s initial infusion at line 625, “For the power of some animal is predominant in every language.” While one cannot exclude Jeoffry’s significance in the poem to the end of Fragment B alone, a thorough examination of metaphoric representation in Jubilate Agno is beyond the scope of this essay. Jeoffry is heavily related to language, or rather, Smart’s use of the language “in its creature-naming and creature-presenting function” (Hartman 438). He compares his own poetic use as having “the sound of a cat,” “the sleekness of a cat,” and “the purring of a cat” (Lines 627, 631, and 634 respectively).
On the surface the work is an exercise of uncensored theatrical exuberance and “gratuitous splendor” (Hartman 437). Smart makes no attempt to hide this fact. He celebrates his poetic intent and zeal on such discourse in line 630, “For Clapperclaw is in the grappling of the words upon one / another in all modes of versification.” Clapperclaw is a double entendre within which Smart shows his hand. Being both “theater-slang for applause” and an archaic term “meaning to scratch and claw, to attack with tooth and nail,” he clearly lays out a mode in which to pull out an exegesis of his poetic attacks in the work (Hartman 441). Smart is the desperate aggressor in the poem. Having been taken out of society and remaining institutionalized, he has no other way of defending himself but through writing. The meditative use of language in the “Jeoffry passage is not just a remarkable paean to Smart’s comforting companion while confined – it is also a significant comment on the process of writing itself” (Ennis 2).
The bestial extravagance in the poem, “compounding man and animal into ritual pairs,” shows itself in more ways than may be obvious (Hartman 432). Smart writes in line 626, “CAT in is the Greek,” followed by line 636, “the Mouse (Mus) prevails in Latin.” Biblical origins are being asserted against the common language of science. Smart works to retain the primary (signifier) hierarchical thought of theology as the (signified) reasoning behind similar order structures in the sciences, particularly Linnaean taxonomy which Smart replicates with the guidance of Pliny the Elder’s natural history. Jeoffry compliments Smart’s approbative causation as the cat “considers God by looking toward objects above him in the created order” (Sutton 303). Despite the elevation of Greek, there is none higher than the Englishman, and “two creatures the Bull and Dog prevail in / English. / For all the words ending in –ble are in the creature. Invisi- / ble, Incomprehensi-ble, ineffa-ble, A-ble” (Lines 643-644).
Let Gideon bless with the Panther – the Word of the Lord is invincible
(Fragment A Line 31, my italics).
As scholar Geoffrey H. Hartman points out, we can take “ble” to inflect “Bull” in lines 674-675
(445).
For BULL in the first place is the word of Almighty God
For he is a creature of infinite magnitude in the height.
All that which is “under Bull” is professed no less than 16 times between lines 678 – 794. In line 679, “For Bull the Month is under it,” might be a wink if not an overt clue to consider the constellation Taurus. This is certainly not unreasona-ble. Recall in the Epic of Gilgamesh the threat of letting the Bull fall to the earth and the consequences of disrupting the harvest. During the reign of the Egyptian and the Assyrian civilizations, Taurus followed the seasonal equinox and relayed to man the time of harvest. As the stars are in constant motion, so too, are these seasonal constellations. If we were to look to the sky for the time of harvest today we would watch for Pisces. Next will be the age of Aquarius; hence the popular song. The era in which the Word of the Lord was written was under Taurus.
One must also consider the significance of Smart himself acquiring horns within the poem in Fragment C with the responding For lines to the calling Let’s in lines 118 – 120
For I prophesy that we shall have our horns again.
For in the day of David Man as yet had a glorious horn
upon his forehead.
For this horn was a bright substance in colour and
consistence as the nail of the hand.
The horns are the armament of emotional and psychological compensation. Eric Miller designates the horns as “the maintenance of innocence” and the “restoration of the masculine” (107). Not only does Smart make man and beast compatible, but he robs the symbolic horn away from the devil and makes it “a poetic defense mechanism” as “animals [in the poem] are cited for their defense mechanisms” (Hartman 445). Smart’s proverbial Noah’s Ark of zoological representation throughout the poem is an attempt to negotiate scientific reasoning as remaining second tier to a higher holy order.
The defensive posturing of Jeoffry works to make Smart’s poem, and praise, a public testimony and in the process he redeems himself from the embarrassment of the very public religious mania that led to him being in Mr. Potter’s madhouse. His behavior is alluded to in other sections of Jubilate Agno. Through Jeoffry, Smart asserts himself as judge and lawgiver who suffers the burden of that role while still magnifying his own uncanny ability to perform the duty with the grace and finesse, “the meditated revenges, the grandiose self-righteousness of someone who feels unfairly relegated to a madhouse” (Miller 109). Though he stealthily invokes this role through Jeoffry,
For he is hated by the hypocrite and the miser.
For the former is afraid of detection.
For the latter refuses the charge. (Lines 751 – 753)
Smart becomes God in the poem. Jeoffry is his creation and “the poet’s consideration of Jeoffrey (sic) is reinforced with Jeoffrey (sic) ‘begins to consider himself’” (Hartman 440). Under the duress of spiritual enthusiasm, Smart is free to attack scientific advances under the guise of spiritual superiority. Though he is posturing, “Smart is clearly not interested in scientific arguments. The authority of the word of God sweeps away all empirical objections” (Williamson 411). In lines 648 – 662 he addresses Newton’s Theory of Color and in doing so supplants spiritual superiority with racial superiority as “WHITE” stands alone as above and best. Christopher Smart is an outspoken racist as made clear in line 215, where is states “the blacks are the seed of Cain.” In line 662 Smart defends a biblical interpretation of racial hierarchy, reasoning “Now that color is spiritual appears inasmuch as the / blessing of God upon all things descends in colour.”
As Daniel J. Ennis explains throughout his essay, “Christopher Smart’s Cat Revisited: Jubilate Agno and the Ars Poetica Tradition,” Smart’s professional relationship with Samuel Johnson and Alexander Pope only offer a greater mystery to the nature of style in the poem. Lance Bertelsen also contributes to this discussion in his essay “Journalism, Carnival, and Jubilate Agno.” Both Johnson and Pope wrote with great passion on the fear of the very experimental writing that Smart employed in Jubilate Agno. This was not the typical work of the translator, critic, and esteemed poet. How did he arrive? What makes sense is a forced ontological pairing in the writing, an attempt to make equal scientific reasoning with a father Word. This making equal is evoked in Jeoffry.
For by stroking of him I have found out electricity.
For I perceived God’s light about him both wax and fire.
For the Electrical fire is the spiritual substance, which God
sends from heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and
beast. (Lines 760 – 763)
Though Jubilate Agno appears to address science, “Smart’s understanding appears shallow, inaccurate, and often out of date” (Williamson 410). Christopher Smart’s journal-poem, fails to recognize itself as such and in the process “conserves the twist and turns of rationalization […] in polysemous suspension, in philological equivocality, forever unresolved” (Miller 108). Smart’s rich intellect and “spiritual substance” offers both the casual reader and scholar opportunities to consider the many ways in which science and religion have influenced literature (Line 763). The poem offers an examination of resistance to change, resistance towards ones own disposition, and resistance towards reason.
Works Cited
1. This comes from line 628, “For the pleasantry of a cat at pranks is in the language ten thousand times over.” There was some measure of difficulty deciding the proper way to quote from the text in the title. As undergrad students we are generally encouraged not to do so. However, this is done quite frequently in academic articles. The MLA Handbook offered no suggestions. It was my conclusion that the proper way was to use single quotes with a colon such as “’A brief glow in the dark’: Samuel Beckett’s Presence in Modern Irish Poetry,” from The Yearbook of English Studies (Vol. 35, 2005). My motive in doing this was simply to learn the correct way to do so. Also, the selected quote clearly compliments the theme of my paper and research. The title insinuates the playfulness in which Jeoffry is used to maintain Smart’s argument in the poem.
Bertelsen, Lance. “Journalism, Carnival, and Jubilate Agno.” ELH, Vol. 59, No. 2 (Summer 1992): 357-384. JSTOR. Web. 7 Nov. 2010.
Ennis, Daniel J. “Christopher Smart’s Cat Revisited: ‘Jubilate Agno’ and the ‘Ars Poetica’ Tradition.” South Atlantic Review, Vol. 65, No. 1 (Winter, 2000): 1-23. JSTOR. Web. 7 Nov. 2010.
Hartman, Geoffrey H. “Christopher Smart’s Magnificat: Toward a Theory of Representation.” ELH, Vol. 41, No. 3 (Autumn, 1974): 429-454. JSTOR Web. 7 Nov. 2010.
Miller, Eric. “Taxonomy and Confession in Smart and Rousseau.” Christopher Smart and the Enlightenment. Ed. Clement Hawes. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999. 99-118. Print.
Smart, Christopher. Selected Poems. Ed. Karina Williamson and Marcus Walsh. London: Penguin Classics, 1990. Print.
Sutton, Max Keith. “Compleat Cat.” College English, Vol. 24, No. 4 (Jan., 1963): 302-304. JSTOR Web. 7 Nov. 2010.
Williamson, Karina. “Smart’s Principia: Science and Anti-Science in Jubilate Ango.” The Review of English Studies, New Series Vol. 30, No. 120 (Nov., 1979): 409-422. JSTOR. Web. 7 Nov. 2010.