Jenny Kissed Me
Leigh Hunt looks back to a memorable event in a long life.
1838
Queen Victoria 1837-1901
Leigh Hunt looks back to a memorable event in a long life.
1838
Queen Victoria 1837-1901
Leigh Hunt first published this delightful poem (which he labelled a Rondeau, though hardly in the technical sense of that term) in The Monthly Chronicle for November 1838. It was inspired by a impulsive greeting from Jane Welsh, wife of Thomas Carlyle.
Rondeau*
JENNY kissed me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in;
Say I’m weary, say I’m sad,
Say that health and wealth have missed me,
Say I’m growing old, but add,
Jenny kissed me.*
From ‘The Poetical Works of Leigh Hunt’ (1923) edited by H. S. Milford.
* A rondeau is a very formal Mediaeval kind of verse. Properly speaking, it is a poem of three stanzas, one of five lines, one of four, and one of six, and the opening words should be repeated as a refrain at the close of the second and third stanzas. This last rule is the only feature of a Rondeau that Hunt’s one-stanza poem satisfies.
* Jenny was Jane Carlyle, née Welsh, wife of essayist Thomas Carlyle. According to Elizabeth Drew (1887-1965), Jane’s biographer, Hunt had been unwell when he came to see the Carlyles in their Chelsea home, and the kiss was born of joy and relief. The Hunts and the Carlyles were neighbours and on friendly terms, and to judge by her letters Jane was quite a kissy lady. Indeed, Jane left record of an occasion when she was somewhat affronted because Leigh Hunt had not kissed her. “If he had kissed me it would have been intelligible,” she wrote in bewilderment, “but Susan Hunter of all people!”
1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?
2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?
3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?
Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
What did Jenny do that so touched Leigh Hunt?
She gave him a wholly unexpected kiss.
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
She kissed him. He wasn’t expecting it. He was touched.
See if you can include one or more of these words in your answer.
IImpulse. IIMean. IIISurprise.