John Clare and Community

John Clare (1793-1864) is one of the most sensitive poetic observers of the natural world. Born into a rural laboring family, he felt connected to two communities: his native village and the Romantic and earlier poets who inspired him. The first part of this study of Clare and community shows how Clare absorbed and responded to his reading of a selection of poets including Chatterton, Bloomfield, Gray and Keats, revealing just how serious the process of self-education was to his development. The second part shows how he combined this reading with the oral folk-culture he was steeped in, to create an unrivaled poetic record of a rural culture during the period of enclosure, and the painful transition to the modern world. In his lifelong engagement with rural and literary life, Clare understood the limitations as well as the strengths in communities, the pleasures as well as the horrors of isolation.

Author: John Goodridge
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 07/02/2015
Pages: 274
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.81lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.58d
ISBN: 9781107566538

About the Author
Goodridge, John: - John Goodridge is Professor of English at Nottingham Trent University.