"Jenny kissed me" from Leigh Hunt, A discussion of the poem and the poet

Jenny kissed me when we first met,

Jumping out of the chair she was sitting on;

Time, thief, you love to get

Sweets on your list, put that in:

Say I’m tired, say I’m sad

Say that health and wealth have failed me,

Say I’m getting old, but add

Jenny kissed me.

Leigh Hunt was a 19th-century English essayist, critic, poet, and publisher. Hunt was not a renowned poet, though her “Jenny Kissed Me” has been enjoyed and often quoted for nearly two centuries. However, Ella Hunt lived during an era of English Romanticism and was influential in the lives of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron and John Keats. She was also a contemporary of Samuel Coleridge, William Wordsworth, and Charles Dickens. Such a large company has given Leigh Hunt a distinguished status.

On “Jenny kissed me”

In 1835, Leigh Hunt and her large family moved to Chelsea in London and became neighbors to the poet and author Thomas Carlyle, at his suggestion. The two became close friends and the Hunt home was always open to his circle of friends, of which there were many.

There are two stories. One story is that Leigh Hunt visited the Carlyles to break the news that he was going to publish one of Thomas Carlyle’s poems. When they broke the news to Carlyle’s wife, Jane, she jumped up and kissed him.

The other story is that during one winter, Hunt was sick with influenza and was away for so long that when he finally recovered and went to visit the Carlyles, Jane jumped up and kissed him as soon as he appeared at the door. Two days later, one of Hunt’s servants delivered a note addressed: “From Mr. Hunt to Mrs. Carlyle.” It contained the poem, “Jenny kissed me.”

The second story is the most repeated.

Fortunately, Hunt was a wise editor, because in the original draft Jenny was Nelly and the word “jaundice” was used instead of “tired” in the fifth line.

Supposedly, Leigh Hunt was a flirtatious man, often in trouble with his wife. It is also said that Jane Carlyle was somewhat bitter and known more for her acid tongue than her impulsive affection.

The poem “Jenny Kissed Me” has been variously described as whimsical, charming, simple, and unaffected. Many readers first encounter him during their school years and remember him for a lifetime. Numerous girls have been named “Jenny” as a result of fond memories of the poem.

The first striking structural feature of “Jenny Kissed Me” is the trochaic meter. This is characterized by a foot that contains an accented syllable followed by an unaccented one. This meter is not commonly used in formal English poetry because it can sound like a song.

The trochaic meter is more common in children’s songs where a sing-song rhythm is appreciated. Think “Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are.”

The singing effect is offset by the abab rhyme scheme in the poem, as opposed to an aabb rhyme scheme. The rhyme scheme above produces a four-line verse as the basic unit of the poem, as in “Jenny Kissed Me”. The latter rhyme scheme produces two-line couplets that enhance sound effect, as in nursery rhymes.

The trochaic meter can also sound solemn or heavy due to the fact that the trochaic foot has a descending pattern (stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable). However, “Jenny kissed me” is a light-hearted poem and relies on the use of feminine rhymes.

Verses that end in a stressed syllable are said to be masculine and those that end in an unstressed syllable are said to be feminine. In “Jenny Kissed Me”, lines 1, 3, 5, and 7 are masculine, but that rhyming pattern is not carried out throughout the poem. Lines 2, 4, 6, and 8 are feminine, which helps offset the masculine rhymes and helps the poem feel lighter and brighter.

The revealing ending of “Jenny Kissed Me” invariably 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 Leigh Hunt’s contemporaries, including Keats, Shelley, Byron, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Dickens, Carlyle, Jeremy Bentham, and Charles Darwin.

During Hunt’s lifetime, England was involved in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 with the United States, and the 23-year period of the Napoleonic Wars with France. During Hunt’s lifetime the French Revolution occurred and Napoleon became Emperor of France. Later, steam engines created an industrial revolution and Darwin sailed to the Galapagos Islands and reported his findings. Over a period of three years, Hunt’s friends and supporters Keats, Shelley and Byron all died at a young age.

Leigh Hunt was born into a poor family near London in 1784 and attended school in London at Christ’s Hospital, a school founded 240 years earlier for the education of poor children. After his education, Hunt took a job as a clerk in the war office.

In 1805, Hunt teamed up with his older brother, John, a printer, to establish a newspaper called News. Three years later, the brothers left the newspaper and created a political weekly that established their liberal reputation called The Review. Among other topics, the Review He called for many reforms in Parliament, criticized King George III, and called for the abolition of slavery.

The power of journalism matured during this period of English history with the publication of numerous critical newspapers that collectively became known as the “radical press”. Consequently, the government took great care, though mostly without success, in prosecuting the “radical press” for seditious libel.

In 1812, the Hunts wrote an article in the Review that he called the Prince Regent, the future King George IV, “a violator of his word, a rake of disgraced head and ears, a scorner of domestic ties, the companion of gamblers and demireps.” As a result, John and Leigh Hunt were convicted by a jury of libel and sentenced to two years in prison.

Although he continued to write for the Review while in prison, Leigh Hunt’s separation from her family convinced him to move away from political writing and concentrate on literary writing.

Shortly after his release from prison, Leigh Hunt moved into his favorite home in Hampstead, where he was able to spend precious time with his wife and three children, and with his literary friends. Friends who stayed with Hunt for periods of time at his Hampstead home included Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats.

Hunt had previously introduced the world to the writings of Keats and Shelley in the pages of the Review. Its section on “Young Poets” gave Keats and Shelley access to valuable space where some of their early work was published.

Keats welcomed Hunt’s guardianship for about a year. He parted ways with Hunt when a critic labeled Hunt and Keats as members of “The Cockney School of Poetry”.

In 1818, Shelley and her family decided to move to Italy for health and financial reasons. Her friend, Lord Byron, was living in Italy at the time and the two corresponded for several years while each lived in different parts of Italy.

In 1821, when Shelley and Byron were located in Pisa, Shelley envisioned a new magazine called the liberal, which Shelley, Byron and their friend Leigh Hunt would publish in Italy. Shelley sent Hunt money and an invitation and promised to provide a house and income for Hunt and her large family.

Hunt liked the prospect of joining Shelley and Byron in Italy and took his family to Genoa and then to Livorno to meet Shelley. After they met, Hunt and his family went to Pisa to meet Byron, and Shelley set sail on her ship, the “Don Juan,” to her coastal home at Casa Magni.

Shelley’s ship was caught in a thunderstorm and sank. Shelley’s body and her crew washed ashore in Corsica a few days later. Local health laws prohibited moving the bodies to Rome or Pisa, so a month later, Hunt, Byron, and their relatives attended the cremation of Shelley’s body. After the cremation, Hunt ended up in possession of Shelley’s heart, which he eventually returned to Shelley’s wife, Mary.

Lord Byron was not interested in the liberal and he soon left Italy to take a commanding interest in the ongoing civil war in Greece. Byron died in Greece of a respiratory illness in 1823.

Hunt and his family were left in Italy without their friends and without income. Hunt published some editions of the liberal, but it lacked heart and soul and failed. Hunt received an advance for literary works and took his family, which now included seven children, back to England.

Hunt was impoverished for most of the rest of his life. Charles Dickens was instrumental in agitating the government for a pension to be awarded to needy authors in England. In 1847, Hunt began receiving a pension which alleviated, but did not eliminate, his financial limitations.

Shortly after returning from Italy, Hunt moved to Chelsea, where, as he had done at the Hampstead house, he opened his home to his literary friends.

The publication of Dickens’s novel, gloomy house, Considered by some critics to be his best work, though certainly not his most popular, it featured a character said to be inspired by Leigh Hunt. The book caused a rift to develop between Dickens and Hunt.

Tea gloomy house the character, Harold Skimpole, was described as “airy, offhand and objectionable”. Skimpole claims to be a child when it comes to finances and arranges for everyone else to pay with his life.

Although Dickens denied that this was a characterization of Hunt and apologized, Hunt and his literary friends were offended.

Leigh Hunt died at the age of 75, long remembered by her many friends. William Hazlitt, the painter and writer, said that “in conversation it is all life and animation, combining the liveliness of the schoolboy with the resources of the scholar’s wit and taste.”