Selected Poems of John Clare, Volume 1

Description

The poems of John Clare are a clear example of how the harshest environments and the most difficult circumstances in life can still hold beauty that can be observed, admired and yes – even turned into some of the most amazing and touching verses that were ever put on paper.

John Clare was an English poet most well-known for his writings about the English countryside and his protests associated with the disruption of its natural balance. He is seen as one of the most talented and renowned poets of the 19th century, and in spite of his unstable psychological condition of his later years, during which time he wrote possibly some of the best poetry of his life.

Clare’s poem collection is reliant mainly on nature and its endless beauty, as the poet reaches for it to escape the harsh realities of he and his family’s laborious existence. Growing up in the countryside, John Clare was a young boy whose family found it difficult to even put food on the table, yet by the age of 13, he managed to develop a remarkable reading expertise.

Further drawing upon his talents in his later years, while his mental health continued to diminish, Clare found himself going through unfortunate events such as losing the love of his life, Mary Joyce, and being admitted to an insane asylum later on. The sad story of his life, however, was a powerful catalyst for many of the poems included here in the first volume of his works, his suffering, immortalized on paper, becoming an inspiration for future readers and poets for almost two centuries.

Known as the “Northampton Peasant Poet,” Clare died in the Northampton General Lunatic Asylum in 1864, but not before leaving as heritage to the world a collection of outstanding poems that, although he couldn’t find a place for in the changing literary fashion of the time, remains widely recognized as some of the best piece of classical literature known today.
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