The Song of the Jellicles

“The Song of the Jellicles” is a whimsical children’s poem composed with a strict rhyme scheme and in a mostly consistent meter. The speaker of the poem is unnamed. Typical of an Eliot poem, the author of the poem detaches himself from the content of the poem, meaning Eliot as the poet does not impose his own voice into the words. Instead, the anonymous speaker allows the poem to feel timeless and universal.

While the poem flows in a singsong manner with simple imagery and diction choices, Eliot uses some obscure words that elevate the vocabulary of the poem beyond typical children’s verse. Additionally, while the poem is whimsical in tone and content, there is a kind of mysterious, almost occult or spiritual feeling to the world of the Jellicles.

The tone and mood of the poem share similarities to Lewis Carroll’s imagined world in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking Glass (1871). Other similar fantastical worlds with a hint of strange darkness appear in many children’s fantasies, including stories like The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (1950), and Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (1997). While the world of the Jellicles does not contain the same kind of epic battles between good and evil that some of those other examples contain, the tone and mood are similar. Essentially, these stories balance childish whimsy with more mature themes of growth and death.

The poem’s childish whimsy is evident in its singsong rhythm and perfect end-rhymes. The poem reads like a nursery rhyme, and Eliot intended it to be sung in an upbeat manner. Additionally, the personified cats who dance and sing are whimsical and fun in their own regard. Even the name “Jellicle” stands out as a sort of childish word, perhaps playing on the fun-sounding “jelly” and “icicle.” At the same time, it also sounds like the word “angelical,” adding to the mystery and maturity lurking just below the poem’s surface.

The poem’s mature themes and tone come from the actions of the cats. The cats engage in the seemingly innocent, free activity of dancing, but their dancing is structured and mature. They do not just dance on their own whenever they wish; they prepare themselves all day for their ball. A ball is a formal dance for adults, and in literature, the ball has often been a symbol of love’s beginning, as seen in fairy tales like Cinderella.

Eliot uses mature expressions to describe the preparation for the ball and the dancing at the ball. The cats “make their toilette and take their repose” (Line 18) as they prepare, meaning they wash themselves and nap. The elevated language of this line contrasts to the simple images of the next two lines: “Jellicles wash behind their ears, / Jellicles dry between their toes” (Lines 19-20). The contrast among these three lines is a nice example of the poem's play between childish fantasy and maturity.

Other lines that use elevated language to describe the cats’ behavior include the type of dance the cats engage in at the ball. They don’t just freely dance like children: “They know how to dance a gavotte and a jig” (Line 16), and they “practise [sic] a caper or two in the hall” (Line 32). The use of these classic folk dances suggests a type of sophistication and structure to the ball. One can imagine the group of cats spruced up in their best suits and dresses with a feline orchestra playing classical rhythms and notes. Maybe some of the cats wear handheld masks to cover their eyes. Maybe at these balls, some of these Jellicles fall in and out of love. The imagery echoes something a viewer might see in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (1597) when Romeo first sees Juliet at a similar kind of dancing party.

Eliot stresses the seriousness of these cats’ ball. These are not just street cats who meet up together like animals in a Disney movie; instead, these cats spend their days in great preparation for the ball. “They like to practice their airs and graces” (Line 11) means they act like wealthy royalty. They have strict manners and customs to follow, and their lives are comfortable as they spend their days not working, but making “their toilette and [taking] their repose” (Line 18). They don’t work: They nap and bathe.

Finally, the cats don’t meow or purr; they caterwaul (Line 8). A caterwaul means a shriek or a yell. It’s usually a distressing sound for a cat. But the poem flips the traditional meaning and says the Jellicles’s caterwaul is pleasant. This is like the kind of yelling one might hear when people dance and lose themselves to music. There is a sort of frantic cry that can come with jubilation, which is what the cats are expressing.

By analyzing these cats’ actions, the reader can see how the cats are not just innocent animals. They are childish in their appearance and innocent activities like washing and napping, but they are also sophisticated, regal, and full of pomp and circumstance. They dance the night away under the moon as if some religious or spiritual zeal and energy possess them. Even their eyes become “moonlit” (Line 24), and the moon becomes Jellicle, suggesting a kind of relationship with nature. The connection between cats and the moon is an old one, and this poem builds on it to add a sense of mystery and mysticism to the ball.

This is evident in the play Cats, which is based on Eliot's poem and the other poems in Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. There are plenty of scenes from the play on YouTube (including one linked at the end of this guide) that will provide readers with a good sense of this seemingly contradictory tone and mood.