John Clare in ContextGeoffrey Summerfield, Hugh Haughton, Adam Phillips The marginalisation of John Clare, despite renewed interest in Romanticism and the literature of madness, is still an enigma. Perhaps more than any other poet of the period, Clare has never found the contexts in which his poetry can be read. This important collection of new critical essays locates Clare's work from diverse points of view, identifying the obstacles to his reception as a major poet. It includes chapters on landscape and botany, Clare's politics, his madness, Clare and the critics, and a remarkable essay by Seamus Heaney on Clare's importance as a poetic precursor. This volume will be a landmark in the history of his reception, revealing the ways in which an appreciation of this unique poet revises the canon of Romantic and Victorian literature. |
Contents
Clare and the critics Mark Storey | 28 |
The Nightingales Nest | 51 |
the trespasser John Goodridge and Kelsey | 87 |
a bicentenary lecture Seamus Heaney | 130 |
Clares politics John Lucas | 148 |
The exposure of John Clare Adam Phillips | 178 |
John Clares | 221 |
Clare botany and | 238 |
John Clare and the asylum | 259 |
Clare and the Dark System Marilyn Gaull | 279 |
| 295 | |
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aesthetic asylum Autobiographical Writings ballad beautiful bird Bloomfield botany Burghley Park Byron century claims Clare wrote Clare's poems Clare's poetry Coleridge common contemporary Critical Heritage culture David Powell dialect E. P. Thompson Early Poems edition enclosure England English Eric Robinson essay fact feeling Flitting flowers freedom garden genius Geoffrey Grigson Geoffrey Summerfield Grainger gypsies Helpston heteroglossia Hugh Haughton human Ibid John Barrell John Clare John Clare Oxford John Lucas Keats Keats's kind labour landscape language Later Poetry Letters lines literary London madness Mark Storey Midsummer Cushion Natural History never nightingale Nightingale's Nest Northampton Northamptonshire Northborough pastoral peasant poet Poems Descriptive poet poet's political Prose published radical Radstock recognition Robinson and Powell Romantic Romantic poetry Romanticism Roy Porter Scottish Seamus Heaney seems Selected Poetry sense Shepherd's Calendar social song sonnet stanza suggests texts things Tom Paulin tree trespass verse Village Minstrel wild words Wordsworth