Literature Annotations
Swift, Jonathan
Cassinus and Peter: A Tragical Elegy
Genre
Poem
Keywords
Body Self-Image, Love, Nature, Sexuality
Summary
Published in 1734, this poem of 7-syllable couplets describes how Peter goes to visit his college friend Cassinus.
He finds Cassinus filthy and miserable in his dorm room and asks his friend why he is such a mess. Cassinus
replies that he is in this state because of Celia. Peter wonders if Celia has died; if she has cheated on Cassinus; if
she has been struck down by some disfiguring disease; or, ultimately, if there is something terribly wrong with
Cassinus. No, replies Cassinus, to each of these in turn. He makes Peter promise not to divulge the terrible secret
he has discovered about his once beloved Celia, and then tells him: "Nor wonder how I lost my wits; / Oh! Celia,
Celia, Celia shits."
Commentary With a last couplet like that, it is no wonder that this poem has a certain infamy. The shocking expletive is quite
easily interpreted as a misanthropic, or even misogynistic, revulsion with the body. But that is to forget the rest of
the poem (easy to do, given the startling couplet). Cassinus's own physical degradation has been jarringly
contrasted with the pastoral tropes he employs, and already there is a wide gap between ideals and corporeality.
Both Cassinus and Peter can describe and imagine decaying or sick bodies, as well as deceit and death, but only in
a hypothetical way, imbued with the mystery and distance of mythic conceits about nature. For all his knowledge
about the world as a young scholar, and despite his facility with the literary trappings of nature, it comes as a
terrible shock to Cassinus that Celia has a human body.
We need not be entirely unsympathetic to Cassinus: it is quite possible that love, whether idealized or quite
powerfully felt (or both), can make us blind to another's less delicious activities. The discovery of this
imperfection, this failing, this humanity, however mundane, can be quite a shock.
Source
The Oxford Anthology of English Literature: The Restoration and Eighteenth Century
Publisher
Oxford Univ. Press
Edition
1973
Place
Published
London
Miscellaneous Originally published 1731 or 1734
Annotated by Henderson, Schuyler W.
Date of Entry 07/27/06