Introduction to Geoffrey Hartman, "Trauma And Literature: The Case of Christopher Smart"

This introduction discusses the relationship between "Trauma and Literature: The Case of Christopher Smart," which Geoffrey Hartman was still working on before his death, and Hartman's famous original essay on Jubilate Agno , published in 1974: "Christopher Smart's Magnificat : Toward a Theory of Representation." With the help of Hartman's intermediate drafts and overflow notes to himself, Goodman sketches the continuous line of concern that links this late essay to Hartman's work of the 1970s. She argues that "Smart's Magnificat " was already exploring the distinct conditions of thwarted speech that Hartman would later call the literary expression of trauma in Smart and others.