Genius and Madness in Christopher Smart’s My Cat Jeoffry
A series of verses commencing with the word “for”, Christopher Smart’s “My Cat Jeoffry” is surprisingly modernistic and intriguing. Written while Smart was confined in a mental asylum for incessant praying, the aphoristic poem praises the cat Jeoffry, a faithful servant to God. Unrestricted by rigid poetic structures, “My Cat Jeoffry” is nevertheless organized and coherent, ablaze with a current of religious fervour. It is impossible to know if the poem was inspired by genius or by madness, but it is infused with sanity and truth. While the poem is about a cat’s devotion to God through its daily actions, Smart’s “My Cat Jeoffry” also serves as a lesson to humankind.
Imbued with a sense of humour and light-heartedness, the poem is a song of praise at the transparent level. Listing the cat Jeoffry’s virtues one by one, Smart explains how the feline worships God in his own way. The repetition on the word “for” connotes the ritualized actions of Jeoffry’s everyday life, and it also conveys a sense that Jeoffry’s actions should not be disputed. As there are no rhyming schemes or poetic devices such as enjambments, “My Cat Jeoffry” appears to be a spontaneous account of the cat’s actions.
The divine presence of God is inescapable, for phrases such as “the Living God” (line 2), “counteracts the Devil” (26), and “the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt” (35) are abundant. Moreover, the “sacred” number seven is emphasized; Smart mentions Jeoffry’s first divine action as “wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness” (4) and that “one mouse in seven escapes by [Jeoffry’s] dallying” (22). Harkening back to the Ten Commandments, Smart compile...
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...levels of meanings do not undermine one another, for they can exist simultaneously and separately. Smart intends to praise the innocent and faithful cat Jeoffry, but he also wishes to comment on the concept of the self and its relationship to God and to others. The characteristics of Jeoffry are ideal in the world of felines, and they can be applied to the human world as well. The poem leaves no doubt that service to God springs from everyday actions – although one does not truly know what Smart’s standpoint is regarding the devoted. With powerful imageries and witty diction, Smart’s “My Cat Jeoffry” sends a convincing message that one’s spiritual life need not be separate from one’s physical life.
Work Cited
Smart, Christopher, "My Cat Jeoffry," Jubilate Agno, 1939. The Norton Anthology of Literature. 7th ed. 2 vols. New York: Norton, 2000. 1: 2840-2842.
While William Blake’s “Holy Thursday” from Songs of Innocence was written before the French Revolution and Blake’s “Holy Thursday” from Songs of Experience was written after, creating obvious differences in formal structure; these poems are also uniquely intertwined by telling the same story of children arriving to church on Holy Thursday. However, each gives a different perspective that plays off each other as well the idea of innocence and experience. The idea that innocence is simply a veil that we are not only aware of but use to mask the horrors of the world until we gain enough experience to know that it is better to see the world for simply what it is.
Why I Left the Church” by Richard Garcia is a poem that explores the ongoing and conflicting relationship between a child’s fantasy and the Church. Although the majority of the text is told in present tense, readers are put through the lenses of a young boy who contemplates the legitimacy of the restricting and constricting nature of worship. It is a narrative that mixes a realist approach of storytelling with a fantasy twist that goes from literal metaphors to figurative metaphors in the description of why the narrator left the church. The poet presents the issue of childhood innocence and preset mindsets created by the Church using strong metaphors and imagery that appeal to all the senses.
The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001’s main purpose was to enhance the education system and hold schools accountable in its attempt to bring equality in the fight against poverty for poor and minority groups. Once this Act was signed into law the American public expected an overhaul of the education system with only good outcomes. The public assumed our children would be receiving the best education available and the economic issues that plagued schools would no longer be a problem. In the beginning of its implementation No Child Left Behind was expected to bring America up to standards with other nations, this was something that America has struggled to do for many years. Our children were now being put first according to Act and the public and many political figures were ecstatic over the possibilities.
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The presence of the two cats in the tale allows the narrator to see himself for who he truly is. In the beginning the narrator explains that his “tenderness of heart made him the jest of his companions”. (251) He also speaks of his love for animals that has remained with him from childhood into manhood. However, Poe contradicts this description of the narrator when he seems to become annoyed with the cat that he claims to love so much. While under the influence of alcohol the narrator is “fancied that the cat avoided his presence”(250) and as a result decides to brutally attack the cat. This black cat symbolizes the cruelty received by slaves from whites. The narrator not only “deliberately cuts one of the cats eyes from the sockets” (250) but he also goes on to hang the cat. Once the narrator successfully hangs the cat the tale begins to take a very dark and gothic-like turn. The racism and guilt of the narrator continues to haunt him once he has killed the black cat. Th...
Overall, it expresses the love and affection of Collin about this poem. This poem is basically looked at, or listened to, and the rodent tested. Such imagery used in poem supports the central ideas of Collin in poem, that the reading poetry must be, just like a good exploration, a discovery act. The poem has a very conversational effect and scholastic feel in it. First stanza directly linked to the second stanza while the third and fourth stanza of this poem has distinct thoughts in them. Similarly, the six stanzas come in a follow-up way but the mood actually changed in the last two stanzas of the poem. In short, Collin has written this poem in a very special and artistic way which really changes other’s minds about how to better understand a poem by knowing its actual meaning.
In order to see how Gray’s Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat uses mirrors the style of the mock epic, we must pinpoint features and conventions of epic literature. One common feature of the epic is that there is commonly a huge amount of focus on an object of desire. In the case of a mock epic, the object in question is given a disproportionate amount of importance. In Alexander Pope’s mock epic The Rape of the Lock, the main object of desire is Belinda’s lock of hair. As the lock is an object that the Sylphs surrounding her are tasked to guard, is it treated is something sacred, and becomes a symbol of Belinda’s chastity. In the case of Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat, the goldfishes are treated as the object of desire. The fishes take on “angel forms” and don hues of purple and gold – regal colors that give the fishes a disparate sense of importance and entice the cat towards the fishbowl. This flattering...
...nity of all living things, including himself. The harsh reaction of organized religion to this idea is illustrated in the second "Little Boy Lost," in which the youth is actually burned for his rebellious thinking. The first set of poems tells of the boy's lack of success in a religious system in that did not seem to really care about the boy, and left him floundering. It then describes his introduction to God in the forest, who brought him back to his mother, the earth, which showed him proper reverence of God through nature, not priestly education. The second poem captures organized religion's harsh reaction to this unorthodox and rebellious thinking, and destroys the boy for trying to reach outside of the accepted normal teachings. Together, the poems show an evolution from Blake's dissatisfaction with organized religion to an outright indictment of its practices.
Yin, R 2003. Case Study Research: Design and Methods (third edition), Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Cohen et al. (2010) wrote that assessment can be a major contributor to raising standards in schools in terms of teaching, learning and student achievement. In addition, if assessment is properly handled with consistency, reliability, validity and rigour, it can have a possitive effect on learning and can improve students' own understanding of how can they learn more effectively and improve.
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Holy Bible: Contemporary English Version. New York: American Bible Society, 1995. Print. (BS195 .C66 1995)
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