Description
Book SynopsisJohn Clare (17931864), one of England's most important early chroniclers of nature and environmental change, was keenly interested in natural history, folk culture, balladry and the literary tradition. This collection assesses Clare's work from many different angles analysing his engagements with religion, ecology, 'green' politics, class prejudice and working-class culture.
Trade Review'This fine collection of essays exemplifies, as the editors' note in their introduction, the 'striking variety' of Clare's writings and the 'interpretive capaciousness' of this fertile moment in Clare scholarship … Ranging widely from Clare's engagement with eighteenth-century verse to his reception in the years following his death, the contributors shed new light on some of his most characteristic forms and themes and on his complex place in the literary and political cultures of his day … ground-breaking and important not only for Clare scholarship but also for the study of nineteenth-century literature.' Stephanie Kuduk Weiner, Modern Philology
'New Essays on John Clare marks a fresh departure in John Clare studies, and it will prove rewarding to Clare specialists and to generalist readers who seek to understand Clare's place in the broader historical development of literary culture in the Romantic and Victorian periods.' Jim McKusick, The Wordsworth Circle
'New Essays on John Clare serves as a new landmark collection that articulates the wonderfully diverse avenues for rereading Clare as a full participant in the nineteenth-century intellectual milieu of literature, art, and politics.' Katey Castellano, Romanticism Journal
'Simon Kövesi's and Scott McEathron's collection represents an engaging and timely contribution to Clare studies, one most rewarding for the way it testifies to Clare's 'ongoing status as an uncategorizable literary and social misfit'.' Daniel Westwood, The Keats-Shelley Review
Table of ContentsIntroduction Simon Kövesi and Scott McEathron; Part I. Poetry: 1. John Clare's colours Fiona Stafford; 2. John Clare, William Cowper and the eighteenth century Adam Rounce; 3. John Clare's conspiracy Sarah M. Zimmerman; Part II. Culture: 4. John Clare and the new varieties of enclosure: a polemic John Burnside; 5. Ecology with religion: kinship in John Clare Emma Mason; 6. The lives of Frederick Martin and the first Life of John Clare Scott McEathron; 7. John Clare's deaths: poverty, education, and poetry Simon Kövesi; Part III. Community: 8. John Clare's natural history Robert Heyes; 9. 'This is radical slang': John Clare, Admiral Lord John Radstock and the Queen Caroline affair Sam Ward; 10. John Clare and the London Magazine Richard Cronin.
