John Clare: Poetry
The language of intrusion in Clare and Burns College
Both John Clare and Robert Burns are poets invested in rural lives - in dialect, in tradition, in worlds previously voiced only by aural tradition. The poet who chooses to reveal these intimate portraits of a life all but completely hidden from literature is somewhat like a spy in his own village. Every appropriation of a dialect word is a type of thievery - in a way, Clare is right to see himself as a ‘robber’. He is taking something that sprang from the landscape or the tongues of the local people and enfranchising it within a literary culture that has shunned such inclusiveness for centuries.
O rural life what charms thy meanness hide
What sweet descriptions bards disdain to sing
What Loves what Graces on thy plains abide
O could I soar me on the muses wing
What riffel’d charms should my researches bring
Pleas’d would I wander where these charms reside
Of rural sports and beauties would I sing
Those beauties wealth which you but vain deride
Beauties of richest bloom superior to your pride.
Clare, ‘The Harvest Morning’ l.65-73
Clare is a poet anxious to find his place. He is at once tied to the ‘rural life’ that he, from childhood, has had access to, and uncertain of where, within language, to locate his feelings. Need he...
Join Now to View Premium Content
GradeSaver provides access to 2312 study guide PDFs and quizzes, 10989 literature essays, 2751 sample college application essays, 911 lesson plans, and ad-free surfing in this premium content, “Members Only” section of the site! Membership includes a 10% discount on all editing orders.
Already a member? Log in