Christopher Smart
Subtitle: clown of God
By: Chris Mounsey.
Series: Bucknell studies in eighteenth-century literature and culture
Publisher: Bucknell University Press; Associated University Presses
Published: 2001
Place of publication: Lewisburg, [Pa.]; London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 342
Subjects: Smart, Christopher, 1722-1771; Literature and mental illness -- Great Britain -- History -- 18th century; Psychiatric hospital patients -- Great Britain -- Biography; Christian poetry, English -- 18th century -- History and criticism; Verse satire, English -- History and criticism; Poets, English -- 18th century -- Biography; Journalists -- Great Britain -- Biography
Genres: Biography.
Description: "This new biography of Christopher Smart offers a picture of a multifaceted eighteenth-century wit whose writing has far-reaching social, political, and historical significance. Poet, journalist, theater performer, cross-dresser, and theologian, who was questionably incarcerated for insanity, wherever Smart found himself his approach to life was at once serious and joyful, confirming him as one of God's clowns.".

"Building on previous biographical, bibliographical, and critical work - as well as on a broad scholarship on the publishing trade, on Grub Street and the position of the professional writer, and on the institutional treatment of madness in eighteenth-century England - Chris Mounsey constructs a version of Smart's life that is radically original.

In its intelligent use of legal, parliamentary, and other archives, Mounsey both reappraises the familiar source material and mounts a challenge to earlier accounts of Smart's life and career.

New interpretations of Smart's relationship with others (including his father-in-law John Newbery), his life on Grub Street as a political satirist, and his involvement in theological speculations provide a fuller and more engaging picture of the social, political, scientific, and religious context of his life and work."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 331-336) and index.