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Christopher Smart

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Born: April 10 1722

Died: 2020 05 17711771

Christopher Smart, also known as "Kit Smart", "Kitty Smart", and "Jack Smart", was an English poet.

He was a major contributor to two popular magazines and a friend to influential cultural icons like Samuel Johnson and Henry Fielding. Smart, a high church Anglican, was widely known throughout London.

Smart was infamous as the pseudonymous midwife "Mrs. Mary Midnight" and widespread accounts of his father-in-law, John Newbery, locking him away in a mental asylum for many years over Smart's supposed religious "mania". Even after Smart's eventual release, a negative reputation continued to pursue him as he was known for incurring more debt than he could repay; this ultimately led to his confinement in debtors' prison until his death.

Smart's two most widely known works are A Song to David and Jubilate Agno, both at least partly written during his confinement in asylum. However, Jubilate Agno was not published until 1939 and A Song to David received mixed reviews until the 19th century. To his contemporaries, Smart was known mainly for his many contributions in the journals The Midwife and The Student, along with his famous Seaton Prize poems and his mock epic The Hilliad. Although he is primarily recognised as a religious poet, his poetry includes various other themes, such as his theories on nature and his promotion of English nationalism.

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Christopher Smart

Christopher Smart

Books from Christopher Smart

Jubilate Agno

For I Will Consider My Cat Jeoffry

A Selection of Poetry

A Song to David

Reimagining a Place for the Wild

The Works of Horace: Odes, Epodes, Satires and Epistles (The Complete 9 Books of Odes, Epodes, Satires and Epistles)

Phaedrus: The Fables

Fables

For I Will Consider My Cat Jeoffry

The Poetical Works of Christopher Smart: Volume II: Religious Poetry, 1763-1771 (|c OET |t Oxford English Texts)

The Imagery of Soviet Foreign Policy and the Collapse of the Russian Empire:

The World Displayed, Vol. 8 of 10: Or a Collection of Voyages and Travels, Selected From the Writers of All Nations (Classic Reprint)

The Comedies Of Terence And The Fables Of Phaedrus

The Greatest Works of Roman Classical Literature

The Greatest Works of Roman Classical Literature

Yale Classics (Vol. 2): The Rise and Fall of Rome: The Greatest Works of the Roman Classical Literature

Yale Classics (Vol. 2): The Rise and Fall of Rome: The Greatest Works of the Roman Classical Literature

Yale Required Reading - Collected Works (Vol. 2): The Rise and Fall of Rome: The Greatest Works of the Roman Classical Literature

Yale Classics - Roman Classical Literature

Yale Classics (Vol. 2): The Rise and Fall of Rome: The Greatest Works of the Roman Classical Literature