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 In his 1934 pageant play "The Rock", Eliot distances himself from Fascist movements of the Thirties by caricaturing Oswald Mosley's Blackshirts, who 'firmly refuse/ To descend to palaver with anthropoid Jews'. The 'new evangels' of totalitarianism are presented as antithetic to the spirit of Christianity. Craig Raine, in his books "In Defence of T. S. Eliot" (2001) and "T. S. Eliot" (2006), sought to defend Eliot from the charge of anti-Semitism. Reviewing the 2006 book, Paul Dean stated that he was not convinced by Raine's argument. Nevertheless, he concluded, "Ultimately, as both Raine and, to do him justice, Julius insist,