Leigh Hunt became a 19th century English essayist, critic, poet, and writer. Hunt turned into not a famend poet, even though his “Jenny Kissed Me” has been loved and frequently quoted for nearly two centuries. However, Hunt lived all through an age of English Romanticism and was influential within the lives of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, and John Keats. He become also modern-day with Samuel Coleridge, William Wordsworth, and Charles Dickens. Such great company has given Leigh Hunt a outstanding reputation.
About “Jenny Kissed Me”
In 1835 Leigh Hunt and his huge family moved to Chelsea in London and have become neighbor to poet and author, Thomas Carlyle, at his suggestion. The became near friends and Hunt’s home changed into usually open to his circle of friends, of which there have been many.
Two memories exist. One tale is that Leigh Hunt visited the Carlyles to supply the news that he became going to post certainly one of Thomas Carlyle’s poems. When the information was added to Carlyle’s wife, Jane, she jumped up and kissed him.
The other story is that during one iciness Hunt changed into unwell with influenza and absent for see you later that after he in the end recovered and went to visit the Carlyles, Jane jumped up and kissed him as quickly as he appeared at the door. Two days later one of the Hunt servants introduced a note, addressed, “From Mr. Hunt to Mrs. Carlyle.” It contained the poem, “Jenny Kissed Me.”
The second tale is the only most usually repeated.
Thankfully, Hunt become a wise editor, due to the fact inside the unique draft Jenny became Nelly and the word “jaundiced” changed into used rather than “weary” in the fifth line.
Reputedly, Leigh Hunt changed into a flirtatious guy, frequently in problem along with his spouse. Also reputedly, Jane Carlyle become a bit sour and higher recognized for her acid tongue than for impulsive affection.
The poem, “Jenny Kissed Me” has been described variously as whimsical, captivating, simple, and unaffected. Many readers come across it for the first time all through their school-age years and don’t forget it all their lives. Numerous women were named “Jenny” as a result of the fond reminiscence of the poem.
The first hanging structural feature of “Jenny Kissed Me” is the trochaic meter. This is characterised via a foot that consists of an accented syllable observed with the aid of an unaccented one. This meter isn’t generally used in formal English poetry because it may sound singsong.
The trochaic meter is extra not unusual in children’s nursery rhymes where a singsong rhythm is welcome. Think of “Twinkle, twinkle little megastar, How I surprise what you are.”
The singsong impact is offset by using the abab rhyme scheme inside the poem, instead of an aabb rhyme scheme. The former rhyme scheme produces a 4 line verse as the primary unit of the poem, as in “Jenny Kissed Me.” The latter rhyme scheme produces line couplets which enhance the singsong effect, as in children’s nursery rhymes.
Trochaic meter can also sound solemn or heavy because of the reality that the trochaic foot has a falling pattern (burdened syllable followed by an unstressed syllable). However, “Jenny Kissed Me” is a lighthearted poem and is supported by using the usage of female rhymes.
Lines that end with a stressed syllable are said to be masculine and lines that stop with an unstressed syllable are said to be female. In “Jenny Kissed Me” lines 1, three, 5, and 7 are masculine, but that rhyme pattern isn’t carried all through the poem. Lines 2, 4, 6, and eight are feminine, helping to offset the masculine rhymes and helping to make the poem feel lighter and brighter.
The insightful finishing to “Jenny Kissed Me” forever brings a smile to the reader’s face.
About Leigh Hunt
James Henry Leigh Hunt was born in England in 1784 and died in 1859. Many English poets and writers were contemporaries of Leigh Hunt, which include Keats, Shelley, Byron, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Dickens, Carlyle, Jeremy Bentham, and Charles Darwin.
During Hunt’s lifetime England engaged inside the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 with America, and the 23 12 months period of the Napoleonic Wars with France. During Hunt’s lifetime the French Revolution came about and Napoleon became Emperor of France. Later, steam engines created an commercial revolution, and Darwin sailed to the Galapagos Islands and stated his findings. During a three yr period Hunt’s pals and supporters, Keats, Shelley, and Byron all died at young ages.
Leigh Hunt changed into born into a terrible own family close to London in 1784 and attended faculty in London at Christ’s Hospital, a school founded 240 years in advance for the schooling of bad kids. Following his schooling, Hunt took a process as a clerk in the war office.
In 1805 Hunt partnered together with his older brother, John, a printer, to set up a newspaper known as The News. Three years later the brothers abandoned the newspaper and created a political weekly that established their liberal popularity known as the Examiner. Among different subjects, the Examiner referred to as for lots reforms in Parliament, criticized King George III, and known as for the abolition of slavery.
The power of journalism got here of age throughout this period of English history with the publishing of numerous crucial newspapers which together have become known as the “radical press.” Consequently, the authorities have become very busy, although mainly unsuccessfully, prosecuting the “radical press” for seditious libel.
In 1812 the Hunts wrote a piece of writing within the Examiner that known as the Prince Regent, the destiny King George IV, “a violator of his word, a libertine over head and ears in disgrace, a despiser of domestic ties, the associate of gamblers and demireps.” As a end result, John and Leigh Hunt had been convicted by using a jury of libel and sentenced to 2 years in jail.
Though he endured to write down for the Examiner while in prison, Leigh Hunt’s separation from his own family satisfied him to pull away from political writing and to cognizance on literary writing.
Shortly after being launched from jail, Leigh Hunt moved into his favored residence in Hampstead in which he become capable of spend precious time with his wife and three youngsters and with his literary pals. Among the ones buddies who stayed with Hunt for intervals of time in his Hampstead house have been Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats.
Hunt had earlier delivered the world to the writings of Keats and Shelley inside the pages of the Examiner. His section on “Young Poets” gave Keats and Shelley access to treasured area where a number of their first works had been published.
Keats welcomed Hunt’s tutelage for approximately a 12 months. He broke far from Hunt when a critic categorised Hunt and Keats as participants of “The Cockney School of Poetry.”
In 1818 Shelley and his family decided to transport to Italy for fitness and financial reasons. His pal, Lord Byron, turned into living in Italy at the time and the two corresponded for several years while every lived in exceptional components of Italy.
In 1821, when Shelley and Byron were each located in Pisa, Shelley predicted a new magazine called The Liberal, which Shelley, Byron, and pal, Leigh Hunt, might publish in Italy. Shelley sent money and an invite to Hunt and promised to offer a house and income for Hunt and his massive own family.
Hunt liked the possibility of becoming a member of Shelley and Byron in Italy and took his family to Genoa and then to Leghorn to fulfill Shelley. After their meeting Hunt and his family went to Pisa to join Byron, and Shelley set sail in his boat, the “Don Juan,” for his home up the coast at Casa Magni.
Shelley’s boat changed into caught in a thunderstorm and sank. Shelley’s body and his crew washed ashore in Corsica some days later. Local health legal guidelines prohibited the shifting of the our bodies to Rome or Pisa, so a month later Hunt, Byron, and circle of relatives individuals attended a cremation of Shelley’s frame. After the cremation Hunt ended up in possession of Shelley’s heart, which he subsequently returned to Shelley’s wife, Mary.
Lord Byron become now not inquisitive about The Liberal and shortly left Italy to take a commanding interest within the civil struggle unfolding in Greece. Byron died in Greece of respiratory ailment in 1823.
Hunt and his own family had been left in Italy with out luxury duck hunts their friends and with out an earnings. Hunt posted some variants of The Liberal, but it lacked coronary heart and soul and failed. Hunt obtained an boost for literary works and took his own family, which now protected seven youngsters, back to England.
Hunt became impoverished maximum of the relaxation of his life. Charles Dickens was instrumental in agitating the government for the supply of a pension to be paid to England’s needy authors. In 1847 Hunt started receiving the pension which eased, but did now not cast off, his financial constraints.
Shortly after getting back from Italy, Hunt moved to Chelsea, where, as he had executed on the Hampstead house, he opened his domestic to his literary friends.
The publication of Dickens’ novel, Bleak House, considered via a few critics to be his best work, even though actually not his maximum popular, included a person stated to be modeled after Leigh Hunt. The e book induced a rift to broaden between Dickens and Hunt.
The Bleak House person, Harold Skimpole, become described as “ethereal, improvident and objectionable.” Skimpole claims to be a baby with regards to finances and manages to have all of us else pay his manner thru life.