Jellicle cats Jellicle cats "Jellicle cats", or simply the "Jellicles", are a type of feline mentioned in T. S. Eliot's book "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats", and in "Cats", a stage musical written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and based on the book. Introduced in Eliot's poem "The Song of the Jellicles", they were originally depicted as commonly nocturnal gray, scruffy cats. Specifically, Eliot mentions that they like to gather at an event called the "Jellicle Ball". In the musical, a sub-plot surrounds the disappearance of the Jellicle patriarch Old Deuteronomy. The names are taken from Eliot's poem "The Naming of Cats"
T. S. Eliot And the writers of "Time" magazine were similarly baffled by a challenging poem like "The Waste Land". John Crowe Ransom wrote negative criticisms of Eliot's work but also had positive things to say. For instance, though Ransom negatively criticised "The Waste Land" for its "extreme disconnection", Ransom was not completely condemnatory of Eliot's work and admitted that Eliot was a talented poet. Addressing some of the common criticisms directed against "The Waste Land" at the time, Gilbert Seldes stated, "It seems at first sight remarkably disconnected and confused... [however] a closer view of the poem does more than illuminate the