Critical Response
Although he wrote his second set of hymns, Hymns for the Amusement of Children, for a younger audience, Smart cares more about emphasizing the need for children to be moral instead of "innocent". These works have been seen as possibly too complicated for "amusement" because they employ ambiguities and complicated theological concepts. In particular, Mark Booth questions "why, in this carefully polished writing.... are the lines sometimes relatively hard to read for their paraphrasable sense?" Arthur Sherbo disagreed with this sentiment strongly and claims the Hymns "are more than mere hack work, tossed off with speed and indifference. They were written when Smart was in prison and despairing of rescue. Into these poems, some of them of a bare simplicity and naiveté that have few equals in literature of merit anywhere..." However, he does admit some of the argument when he claims that "Generosity", along with a handful other hymns, was "not so simple and surely proved too much for the children for whom they were bought."
Not all critics agree that the work is too complex for children, and some, like Marcus Walsh and Karina Williamson, view that the works would have fit the appropriate level for children in the 18th century, especially with the short length of each hymn and a small illustration of the scene proceeding each one. This is not to say that the works are "simple", because many words are complex, but, as Donald Davie explains, there is a "naiveté" in the work that allow them to be understood. In particular, Moira Dearnley claims that the hymns contain a "high-spirited delight in the day-to-day life of children, the joy that characterizes the best the Hymns for the Amusement of Children."
Read more about this topic: Hymns For The Amusement Of Children
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