When people read works of T. S. Eliot like The Waste Land, or Four Quartets, they might tend to think of him as a depressive writer. But, T. S. Eliot has written many other poems that has a more upbeat feeling, among them is a collection of poems entitled Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. This is a humorous book about Jellicle Cats who are very much described as humans, yet Eliot’s clever use of words helps us to see them very well as cats. Eliot has a way of showing us who we are through the descriptions of his Jellicle Cats.

Thomas Stearns Eliot describes the cats to have human qualities, yet, very much so, they are still cats. For example, in Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat, Eliot describes a cat who works on a railway train. We see that Skimble is in charge of the sleeping Car Express

And when the guard looked in one of the rooms to ask if someone wanted his or her tea weak or strong

We also see that

Yet, Skimble is still just a cat as we can also see when we learn that

And when

Eliot also describes other cats such as Gus, the theater cat who loves to tell stories of his youth in the theater (his favorite one is when he played Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell). We also see Macavity, a mystery cat who is never at the scene of a crime (though many cats think that he’s the one to blame); Mr. Mistoffelees, the original conjuring cat who is never where he seems to be; Rum Tum Tugger, a curious cat who only likes what he finds for himself; and Old Deuteronomy, an old cat who was famous in proverb and rhyme, and was respected by the other cats. In the Ad-dressing of the Cats, Eliot tells us

As I mentioned before, Eliot has a clever use of his words. A good example is in Bustopher Jones: The Cat About Town. When Eliot describes how Bustopher Jones is fat, he mentions many different names of clubs. These names such as FOX’S BLIMP’S, POTHUNTER’S, DRONES, GLUTTON, and TOMB, are somehow related to being fat. When he is at a loss for words, he either makes one up or simply extends upon one.

T. S. Eliot wrote Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats originally for his Godchildren, Tom Faber and Alison Tandy, in the thirties. It was then that he revealed himself as "Old Possum" to them, thus we find out why it is called "Old Possum’s" book of practical cats. He thought up many different cats for different people such as ‘Noilly Prat’ (an elegant cat); ‘Carbuckety’ (a knock-about cat); ‘Tantomile’ (a witch’s cat); and ‘Sillabub’, (a mixture of silly and Beelzebub). When Tom Faber was four years old, Eliot suggested that "all Pollicle Dogs and Jellicle Cats should be

In January of 1936, Eliot sent both children (Tom and Alison) The Naming of Cats. Eliot sent Alison The Rum Tum Tugger in December of 1936, a poem which he thought would be the last poem on cats that he would write. Yet, a year later he remembered that he had been meaning to write a poem about two cats named Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer. He didn’t think that Alison would like them because their characters turned out to be worse than he thought. He later announced that he had been trying to write a poem on a railway train cat. This turned out to be Skimbleshanks.

T. S. Eliot and Faber and Faber (publishers) originally planned on writing a whole book for Pollicle Dogs and Jellicle Cats, but they decided later on that it was impossible to mix dogs up with cats. (Whenever Eliot was sick or couldn’t sleep, he would recite the verses of the Jellicle Cats under his breath.)

T. S. Eliot makes many references to cats in his other poems as well. For example, in Gerontion he writes:

In The Love song of J. Alfred Prufrock Eliot describes fog like that of a cat when he says:

In his poem Five-finger Exercises, the second part entitled Lines to a Yorkshire Terrier, he even mentions Jellicle Cat and Pollicle Dogs.

In a critical essay written by Elizabeth Sewell, it is written that she believes that Lewis Carroll "is the best interpreter for Mr. Eliot, and Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, Mr. Eliot’s overt Nonsense work, is not a chance production, the master in a lighter mood." She compares Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland to Old Possum, when she mentions Skimbleshanks stopping for tea as compared to the Mad Hatter’s tea party. She also mentions how the Cheshire Cat in Wonderland as well as the GREAT RUMPUSCAT in Old Possum might be an image for God.

"Mr. Eliot can permit himself liberties…and sly theological eddies wander through the Possum book, in Old Deuteronomy, or the cat’s three names, one of which is ineffable."

Sewell believes that The Song of the Jellicles is one of Eliot’s more poetic works.

T. S. Eliot was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1888. He became a graduate student at Harvard in 1910, and started working on his first poems – Portrait of a Lady and The Love song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Again he became a graduate student at Harvard, took his residence in London, and married Vivien Haigh-wood. He was a teacher and book reviewer in London until he got a job at Lloyd’s Bank in London. After a while, he joined Faber and Faber, publishers. In 1927, he joined the Church of England and became a British citizen. Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats was published on October 5, 1939. Eliot’s first wife died in 1947, due to a long illness. He became a Nobel Prize Winner for Literature in 1948. He married Valerie Fletcher in 1957, and 1965 saw the death of this great poet. He published many poems and plays during his years. He wanted to write so that his readers would hopefully think about their health.

T. S. Eliot’s cats became well known, and many thought well of both Eliot and his cats – children as well as adults. In fact, his poetry was so well liked, that it was put to music and is now a Broadway hit entitled CATS. (A very well done production.)

So, if you happen to find that something is missing or broken, and you don’t know who did it (I might mention Mungojerrie, I might mention Griddlebone), don’t worry – just recite the first four lines of The song of the Jellicles (written at the beginning of this essay), and you might find yourself getting in a better mood.

So, we find that cats are much like humans, yet they all have a personality of their own (a name of their own, too). I’ll let T. S. Eliot finish this off by showing his final say about cats:

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