John Clare (born 13 Afterlithe 1793 in Helpston, Northamptonshire) was an English leethwriter, born the son of a farm tiller who came to be known for his breming fortreadings of the English upland and his weep of its upheaving. His leethwriting underwent a hefty edbereckoning in the late H20th and he is often now thought to be among the bremest H19th leethwriters. His lifewriter Jonathan Bate says that Clare was "the greatest working-rank leethwrite that England has ever had. No one has ever written more thrithly of the umworld, of an outburg childhood and of the fremded and shattered being". .
He became a tiller while still a child; however, he heeded lore in Glinton church until he was twelve. In his early grown-up years, Clare became a pot-boy in the Blue Bell lede house and fell in love with Mary Joyce; but her father, a wealthy farmer, forbed her to meet him. He then was a grover at Burghley House, fayed the fyrd, fanded camp life with Roms and worked in Pickworth as a lime burner in 1817. In the following year he was faned to ontake revestow alay. Bad eating stemming from childhood may be the mean frume behind his five-foot height and may have led to his poor bodily health in later life.
Early leeths[]
Clare had bought a twin of Thompson's Seasons and began to write leeths. In a seek to hold off his forbears' outcasting from their home, Clare bid his leeths to a steadily bookseller named Edward Drury, who sent Clare's leethcraft to his farsibb John Taylor of the outbringing house of Taylor & Hessey, who had forlayed the work of John Keats. Taylor forlayed: Clare's Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery in 1820. This book was highly hailed, and in the next year his Village Minstrel and other Poems were outbrought.
Midlife[]
He had wedded Martha ("Patty") Turner in 1820 and begot £45 yearly, a score far beyond what he had ever earned. Soon, however, his income became lacking, and in 1823 he was nearly penniless. The Shepherd's Calendar (1827) met armly, which was not uppened by him selling it himself. As he worked again in the fields his health bettered for a while; but he soon became earnestly ill. Earl Fitzwilliam forestalled him with a new cote and a deal of ground, but Clare could not settle in his new home.
Clare was always torn between the two worlds of written London and his often readless neighbours; between the need to write leethcraft and the need for money to feed and clothe his children. His health began to thole, and he had bouts of stern downheartedness, which became worse after his sixth child was born in 1830 and as his leethcraft sold less well. In 1832, his friends and his London fultumers clubbed together to move the inherd to a bigger cote with a smallholding in the ham of Northborough, not far from Helpston. However, he felt only more befremded.
His last work, the Rural Muse (1835), was yemed belikenly by Christopher North and other edreaders, but which was not enough to feed his wife and seven children. Clare's mind health began to worsen. As his booze intake steadily uppened along with his uncwemeness with his own selfood, Clare's behaving became more burstful.. A yemesome tel of this behaving was swettled in his outburst in a play of The Merchant of Venice, in which Clare cwidely heashed Shylock. He was becoming a burden to Patty and his inherd and In July 1837, on forthput of his outbringing friend, John Taylor, Clare went of his own will (with a friend of Taylor's) to Dr Matthew Allen's homely haven High Beach near Loughton, in Epping Wald. Taylor had sickered Clare that he would beget the best health care.
Later life[]
Clare edwrote breme leeths and ringleeths by Lord Byron. His own deal of Child Harold became a cry for former lost love.
In 1841, Clare left the haven in Essex, to walk home, believing that he was to meet his first love Mary Joyce; Clare was overgot that he was wedded with children to her and Martha as well. In his 2nd staystowe in 1844 he wrote maybe his bremest leeth, I am.
Today, children at the John Clare Lorehouse, Helpston's first, stroll through the ham and stow their 'midsummer cushions' around Clare's gravestone (which has the inwritings "To the Eftmind of John Clare The Northamptonshire Churl Leethwrite" and "A Leethwrite is Born not Made") on his birthday, in ore of their bremest indweller. The thatched cote where he was born was bought by the John Clare Teaching & Lifeworld Trust in 2005 and is edstalling the cote to its 18th yearhundred fettle.
Leethcraft[]
In his time, Clare was meanly known as "the Northhamtonshire Churl Leethwrite". Since his mean learning was short, Clare withstood the brook of the moringly samewised and latined English leidlore and staving in his leeths. Many of his them would come to inhold names brooked steadly in his Northamptonshire rerds.
In his early life he struggled to find a stow for his leethcraft in the wending leethly trends of the day. He also felt that he did not belong with other churls. Clare once wrote "I live here among the heedless like a lost man indeed like one whom the rest seemes careless of having anything to do with - they hardly dare talk in my beglidingfor fear I should name them in my writings and I find more quemeness in wandering the fields than among my quiet neighbours who are unfeeling to everything but work and talking of it and that to no sake." It is mean to see a lack of cwidemarkings in many of Clare's first writings, although many outbringers felt the need to make up for this treading in most of his work.
Clare grew up in a tide of big wends in both town and shire as the Bulkbuild Upwending swept Europe. Many former harvest workers, inholding children, shrithed away from the shire to over-crowded towns, following warehouse work. The Harvest Upwend saw grazings ploughed up, trees and hedges uprooted, the fens sieved and the mean land umbset . This smiting of a yeartide-old way of life downhearted Clare deeply. His mootish and fellowship wens were mostly keepish ("I am as far as my moot reaches 'King and Shire' - no Upbringings in Faith and Reveship say I."). He beleaned even to chide about the underling staddle to which English fellowship downed him, swearing that "with the old dish that was geven to my forefathers I am happy."
His early work quemes both in umworld and the loop of the shire year. Leeths such as Winter Evening, Haymaking and Wood Bilds in Summer freals the littiness of the world and the sickerings of shire life, where wights must be fed and crops harvested. Leeths such as Little Trotty Wagtail show his sharp yemeness of wildlife, At this time, he often brooked leethly trends such as the ringleeth and the twoliner. His later leethcraft was to be more smighing and brooked trends akin to the folks songs and strolls of his youth, as in Evening.
His knowledge of the kindly world went far beyond that of the biggest Lovecraft leethwrites. His 'bird's nest leeths' swettle the self-awareness, and fixedness with the crafting waywork for which the lovecrafters fell for. Clare was the most swaying leethwriter to write in an older trend.
Frimdiness in the 20th yearhundred[]
Clare was withmetedly forgotten in the later nineteenth yearhundred, but keenness in his work was edlivened by Arthur Symons in 1908, Edmund Blunden in 1920 and John and Anne Tibble in their ground-breaking 1935 two-span uplay. Benjamin Britten set some of 'May' from A Shepherd's Calendar in his Spring Leethertune of 1948, and inholding a setting of The Evening Primrose in his Five Flower Songs.
The John Clare Trust bought Clare Cote in Helpston in 2005, upholding it for coming tidebreeds. The Cote has been ednewed brooking kindly building ways and opened to the lede. The widest fay of ordly Clare writings are housed at Peterborough Crafthall, where they can be seen by meetfixing.
Since 1993, the John Clare Fellowship of North America has stighted a yearly seeting of lorely leaves to John Clare.
Leethcraft fays by Clare[]
- Poems Descriptive of Shire Life and Sceneries. London, 1820.
- The Ham Minstrel, and Other Leeths. London, 1821.
- The Shepherd's Calendar with Village Stories and Other Poems London, 1827
- The Village Muse. London, 1835.
- Sonnet. London 1841
- First Love
- Snow Storm.
- The Firetail.
- The Badger
Works about John Clare:
- Frederick Martin. The Life of John Clare.' 1865.
- Cherry, J. L. Life and remains of John Clare. 1873.
- Norman Gale Clare's Poems. 1901.
- Goodridge, John, and Kovesi, Simon eds., John Clare: New Approaches John Clare Society, 2000.
- Jonathan Bate. John Clare. London: Picador, 2003.
- Iain Sinclair Edge of The Orison: In the Traces of John Clare's "Journey Out of Essex" Hamish Hamilton, 2005.
- Powell, David, First Publications of John Clare’s Poems. John Clare Society of North America, 2009.
- Akroyd, Carry, "natures powers & spells - Landscape Change, John Clare and Me" , Langford Press, 2009