A brief biography of Christopher Smart and Smart discussion questions

Also known as "Kit Smart" or "Kitty Smart," Christopher Smart was a highly regarded scholar and poet who won a number of prestigious awards and fellowships at Cambridge and published widely during his lifetime. He was a close friend of a several important writers and thinkers of his day, including Alexander Pope and Samuel Johnson. Smart's scholarly career was impeded by his lengthy confinements in insane asylums, which some of his biographers attribute to his father-in-law’s dislike of him as much as his own mental instability. 

Karina Williamson's biography of Smart for the Poetry Foundation observes that “the cause of [Smart’s] insanity has been much debated, but contemporary evidence is clear on one point: the form it took was religious mania, with a compulsion to pray in public. [Samuel] Johnson's brisk and charitable comments have often been quoted but bear repetition: ‘My poor friend Smart shewed the disturbance of his mind, by falling upon his knees, and saying his prayers in the street, or in any other unusual place.’ And: ‘I did not think he ought to be shut up. His infirmities were not noxious to society. He insisted on people praying with him; and I'd as lief pray with Kit Smart as any one else. Another charge was, that he did not love clean linen; and I have no passion for it.’"

Williams also finds it "notable that beginning with Robert Browning, it has been poets rather than critics who have been the warmest and most perceptive admirers of the poetry of Christopher Smart."

After the class finishes reading the excerpt from Jubilate Agno, discuss the following questions:

• What impression do you get of Smart from this litany*? 
• Does this seem silly or serious or both?
• Karina Williamson describes Smart's brand of "insanity" as "religious mania." Does Smart's religiosity seem manic here? If so, what details suggest that to you? If not, how would you describe the religious spirit we see here? 
• Does Williams' observation that poets are often Smart's "warmest...admirers" make sense to you, as you consider this excerpt? Why do you think this might be the case?

*Litany––A prayer that uses repetition of the same word or phrase again and again, especially at the beginning of each line; Or a poem or other literary work that uses repetition in a similar way.