John Clare in Context

by Edited by Hugh Haughton , Adam Phillips , Geoffrey Summerfield

• ISBN13: 9780521020893
• ISBN10: 0521020891
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-10-06
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

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.

Table of Contents

Preface

Notes on contributors

Introduction: relocating John Clare Hugh Haughton and Adam Phillips

Clare and the critics Mark Storey

Progress and rhyme: 'The Nightingale's Nest' and Romantic poetry Hugh Haughton

John Clare: the trespasser John Goodridge and Kelsey Thornton

John Clare: precursor? Seamus Heaney

Clare's politics John Lucas

The exposure of John Clare Adam Phillips

'The Riddle Nature Could Not Prove': hidden landscapes in Clare's poetry Nicholas Birns

Beyond the visionary company: John Clare's resistance to Romanticism James McKusick

'A Love for Every Simple Weed': Clare, botany and the poetic language of lost Eden Douglas Chambers

All madness for writing: John Clare and the asylum Roy Porter

Clare and 'the dark system' Marilyn Gaull

Selected further reading

Index.