#and he also has an aunt who read him poems by Oliver Wendell Holmes and despite the fact that they're both literary preferences that doesn'

[yeah-thats-probably-it]

Yes to all of this! I adore the idea of Jeeves and Bertie each separately learning more about poetry in order to impress and connect with the other, not knowing that the other has been learning more about poetry to impress THEM. Their special language is really something they built up together!

Your analysis made me think of a section in Wooster Proposes that I think supports your argument. Thompson (chapter 8 pp. 279-280 if you have the book handy) points out that although Jeeves quotes a lot, his quotations never seem to be from recent reading, like, for example, his BFF Spinoza. "He behaves as if he has a mental file of memorized language and quotations, and his omniscience gives the impression of being timeless." (Doylist explanation is that Wodehouse simply wasn’t a fan of Spinoza so didn’t KNOW any quotations, but this, as you say, is no fun) She then goes on to posit that Jeeves appears to have a fondness for cliches—he often praises them when Bertie uses them, and enjoys using them himself:

For example, in Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit, when Bertie remarks that Stilton could easily beat him up, he agrees in a string of cliches: "'Mr. Cheesewright's robustness would enable him to crush you like a fly. He would obliterate you with a single blow.... He would break you in two with his bare hands. He would tear you limb from limb.'" We must assume that he wishes to foster Bertie's use of cliches (and he may even be appealing to Bertie's delight in cliches in order to get this point across more forcefully).

—Wooster Proposes, Jeeves Disposes, Kristen Thompson, page 280

Point one: it sounds like Jeeves has picked up at least a few cliches from Bertie, supporting the “Bertie and Jeeves developed their language together” thesis. Point two, encompassing the last paragraph as well: Jeeves is not a guy who is naturally disposed to expressing himself with poetical language. Beyond the quotations, his speech generally remains very stiff and dry; he doesn't spontaneously come up with flowery turns of phrase on his own. Like you said, he displays much more knowledge about philosophy than poetry starting from the beginning of the series. So the interest in poetry he takes later on isn’t something you’d really expect to be in character for him. I bet if he told that aunt who used to read Oliver Wendell Holmes to him that he’s reading poetry for fun now she would be like “where did THIS come from all of a sudden?”

I think his later interest in poetry IS probably genuine, as he was familiar with the poet Miss Moon in "The Inferiority Complex of Old Sippy,” whom Bertie didn’t know and certainly wouldn’t have read in school. So he probably READS new poetry, but he never quotes from it (he didn’t even quote from Miss Moon when Bertie asked about it, just listed some poem titles). Like you said, he only ever quotes writers that Bertie also knows. Which is so adorable! He isn’t so talkative about ALL his interests (at least not all the time, he’ll talk your ear off about diamonds if it’s tangentially related to the matter at hand), but he’s trying to get his crush to like him, so he talks about things they both like.

And I agree that that excerpt from MOJ doesn’t prove Jeeves had any prior interest in poetry. It DOES sound like a hypothetical, not a statement about the actual past. It functions as both a quick dismissal of the idea without needing to explain further (they're not quite at the level of open intimacy where Jeeves would say "actually, I wasn't really interested in poetry back then" or words to that effect) and an explanation of why he's not going to use it: it wouldn't have worked before (which he knows thanks to other characters' reactions to him in earlier books) and it's not going to work now.

Fantastic catch about Jeeves possibly telling Bertie he's reading improving books because it's expected of servants. (you're right btw, to the best of my knowledge it's not really a term that has a specific meaning. my first exposure to it was in old books—possibly these books, I can’t remember—and I just took it to mean books that are very dry and boring and intellectual that are supposed to improve your mind. a "suffering builds character" sort of thing. the books servants were given to read don't sound like that kind of super highbrow literature, but they kind of ARE about suffering building character, so I was partially right there. I had plain forgotten about Bertie using the term to describe his mystery novels and such). Actually, on that note, I had a Barenstain Bears moment reading this post because I was SURE I remembered Bertie describing the books Florence gave him to read (which perfectly match the description of what I THOUGHT improving books were) as “improving” at some point during “Jeeves Takes Charge,” but he didn’t! You’re right, he must have picked it up from Jeeves later and misinterpreted it. That’s so funny. I wonder if his inclusive definition of “improving book” has anything to do with the fact that Jeeves brought it up right before going into Rosie M Banks. I certainly wouldn’t say he’s wrong, any type of book CAN be improving!

(side note I think Jeeves bringing up improving books right before his Rosie M. Banks spiel might also have been a preemptive defensive measure, like "I read deep and/or appropriate-for-servants books, please don't mistake me for one of those peons who read trashy pulp novels despite the knowledge I'm about to drop.")

Going back to poetry, I have another suggestion! Thompson (chapter 8 pp. 286-287) also says "Even in the earliest stories, Bertie was quoting, mostly from the literature he would have been assigned at school. In "Extricating Young Gussie," he quotes "Pippa Passes" without hesitating: "God's in his heaven/All's right with the world. Later he will often forget this one and call upon Jeeves to finish it."

Thus, I would like to propose an additional theory: sometimes Bertie pretends not to know a quotation so that Jeeves will finish it for him. Kind of both the equivalent of that thing in TV shows where female characters will sometimes act a bit ditzy around guys they have a crush on so they can flatter them about their intelligence, and also a bonding exercise (hey, this is kind of related to that "bids for connection" post I reblogged yesterday). And possibly also a soothing thing, i.e. he finds it comforting to hear Jeeves reciting familiar quotations. I've written before about how Bertie uses "the lark's on the wing/the snail's on the thorn" from the aforementioned "Pippa Passes" to signal contentedness and security, but a lot of that contentedness and security comes from being close to Jeeves. Their private language made of references and poetry quotations makes them closer, so Bertie naturally sees it as a good thing that wants pushing along.

Anyway, brilliant brilliant meta OP, your encyclopedic knowledge of the series and all the background information related to it staggers the mind

Here's the thing about how Jeeves, at the beginning of the stories, doesn't quote, and only starts after a certain amount of time. I've been digging around in the Annotations again, and found this:

About this scene:

‘You want time to think, eh?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘Take it, Jeeves, take it. You may feel brainier after a night’s sleep. What is it Shakespeare calls sleep, Jeeves?’ ‘Tired Nature’s sweet restorer, sir.’ ‘Exactly. Well, there you are, then.’

This is the very first time in the entire series that Jeeves is quoting anything. Now, Bertie is usually the one who gets quotes wrong. But But we know that, later on, that's Jeeves' thing, he does that frequently, he regularly monologues about poetry, to the point where Bertie has to ask him to return to the point at hand. But he doesn't do that yet, and here, he's mixing up his quotations - this one isn't by Shakespeare, instead, it's from Edward Young's Night-Thoughts.

So if this is a new thing for him, something he's only just learning, that'd explain it, because he just plain doesn't know. He is, in this scene, just saying the first thing that comes to mind, absolutely panicking, and meanwhile, Bertie is blithely unaware of the crisis he's just caused Jeeves, because of course Jeeves knows everything and is 100% trustworthy