Christopher Smart and The Whole Duty of Man

Abstract

SMART STARTED WRITING RELIGIOUS POETRY seriously in 1750 when he won the first award of the Seatonian prize, instituted for the best poem by an M.A. of the University of Cambridge on a subject ' conducive to the honour of the Supreme Being and recommendation of virtue. ' Excepting 1754, when illness prevented him from entering the competition, he won the prize each year until 1756, after which he was no longer in a position to compete, ironically because of his confinement for religious mania.2 These poems were each on one of the divine attributes, and while their poetic quality varied year by year, the later ones were distinctly the more Christian and, in conjunction with other poems and external evidence, point to a religious awakening in Smart during a serious illness in 1754-55. Another illness occurred in 1756, in the course of which he received a full assurance of redemption, thus following the pattern set by the contemporary Methodists and Moravians, who typically experienced first of all assent to God's providence and then, after a period of waiting, received by grace a total and permanent rebirth in faith: John Wesley records many such case histories in the Journal (1737-38) of his stay in Germany. After this, Smart was shut up almost continuously until early in 1764.3 During this