100px|Christopher Smart

The English poet Christopher Smart was confined to mental asylums from 1757 until 1763. Smart was admitted into St Luke's Hospital for Lunatics on 6 May 1757. While in St Luke's he wrote Jubilate Agno and A Song to David, the poems considered to be his greatest works. Although many of his contemporaries agreed that Smart was "mad", accounts of his condition and its ramifications varied, and some felt that he had been committed unfairly. Smart was diagnosed as "incurable" while at St Luke's, and when they ran out of funds for his care he was moved to Mr. Potter's asylum. Smart's isolation led him to abandon the poetic genres of the 18th century that had marked his earlier work, and to write religious poetry. His asylum poetry reveals a desire for "unmediated revelation", and it is possible that the self-evaluation found in his poetry represents an expression of evangelical Christianity. Late 18th-century critics felt that Smart's madness justified them in ignoring his A Song to David, but during the following century Robert Browning and his contemporaries considered his condition to be the source of his genius. It was not until the 20th century that critics reconsidered Smart's case and began to see him as a revolutionary poet. (more...)

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_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1014:

Byzantine–Bulgarian Wars: Forces of the Byzantine Empire defeated troops of the Bulgarian Empire at the Battle of Kleidion in the Belasica Mountains near present-day Klyuch, Bulgaria. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kleidion

1693:

Nine Years' War: France won a pyrrhic victory over the Allied forces of William III of England at the Battle of Landen in present-day Neerwinden, Belgium. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Landen

1836:

The Arc de Triomphe in Paris, commemorating those who fought and died for France in the French Revolutionary and the Napoleonic Wars, was formally inaugurated. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_de_Triomphe

1967:

Vietnam War: During preparation for another strike in the Gulf of Tonkin, the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal was hit by a series of chain-reaction explosions caused by an unusual electrical anomaly on its flight deck, killing 134 sailors and injuring 161 others. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_USS_Forrestal_fire

1987:

Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Sri Lankan President J.R. Jayewardene signed the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to resolve the ongoing Sri Lankan Civil War. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Sri_Lanka_Accord

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

incontrovertibly (adv): In a way that cannot be denied or gainsaid http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/incontrovertibly

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

Now I understand what you tried to say to me

How you suffered for your sanity How you tried to set them free —

They would not listen

They did not know how, Perhaps they'll listen now. --Don McLean http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Don_McLean