Poems: Poem by William Carlos Williams, &
From Jubilate Agno by Christopher Smart
illiams appears to have written a simple scene that lacks rhyme, meter, punctuation, and even completion of the action described. The cat only manages to get half-way through his step before the poem ends. The only excessive feature of this poem is its simplicity. However, a quick glance over the poem will also reveal its pictorial nature: four stanzas, shaped similarly to cats' fore- and hindpaws. What the words lack in completion (only 2 paws have moved) is accounted for in the number of stanzas. Another (wildly conjectured?) pattern within the poem is the length of the lines; the first three stanzas mirror each other perfectly in this aspect, but the last stanza is unbalanced...perhaps a subtle hint of impending discord with the fall of the flowerpot? The reference to the "pit" helps this along a bit. This Poem appears to utilize the image of the cat in a poetic exercise, attempting to produce a scene of balance and imbalance, providing words with closure through form.Smart's excerpt is more textually complicated (plenty of words), repetitive, even somewhat alliterative. The subject of the poem is more clearly identified as belonging to the poet, being described in every imaginable facet of action and inaction. Instead of "hidden" focus within the poetic structure, the poet appears to use the animal figure as a figure to project human concepts upon. Jeoffry's relationship to God is constantly reconfirmed (698, 699, 701, 715, 728, 739, 763, and 765), his actions are enumerated (705-714), he is given emotions and virtues (the last half of the lines), and finally becomes symbolic of human life (762-764). These projections reveal various attributes that are desirable to the poet, presented positively and with a certain amount of awe, supported by the elevating references to God and the much admired litheness endowed by Him to Jeoffry.
Williams and Smart have used the same creature as the acting subject of their poems, the first poet for the use of a quadruped image of precarious motion, the second as a source of indirect identification with God and possible improvement of the self by recognition of desirable values.