I lived from 1793-1864. I was from England, and am in the English category.
I influenced poet Norman Rowland Gale.
John Clare's life spanned one of the great ages of English poetry but, until about fifty years ago, few would have thought of putting his name with those of Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Browning and Tennyson.
Born in 1793, the son of humble and almost illiterate parents, Clare grew up in the Northamptonshire village of Helpston and made the surrounding countryside his world. His formal education, such as it was, ended when he was eleven years old, but this child of the 'unwearying eye' had a thirst for knowledge and became a model example of the self-taught man. As a poet of rural England he has few rivals.
From the moment his first publication - Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery - appeared, it was clear that England had a new and very original poet. Sadly, the public's enthusiasm did not last long and each new volume met with diminishing applause. Ill and in debt, he left Helpston for Northborough from where he was eventually removed to Northampton General Lunatic Asylum, where he spent the 23 years until he died in 1864.
Born in 1793, the son of humble and almost illiterate parents, Clare grew up in the Northamptonshire village of Helpston and made the surrounding countryside his world. His formal education, such as it was, ended when he was eleven years old, but this child of the 'unwearying eye' had a thirst for knowledge and became a model example of the self-taught man. As a poet of rural England he has few rivals.
From the moment his first publication - Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery - appeared, it was clear that England had a new and very original poet. Sadly, the public's enthusiasm did not last long and each new volume met with diminishing applause. Ill and in debt, he left Helpston for Northborough from where he was eventually removed to Northampton General Lunatic Asylum, where he spent the 23 years until he died in 1864.
Popular poetry
- Wilt thou go with me, sweet maid,
Say, maiden, wilt thou go with me25 lines, 3 comments - I ne'er was struck before that hour
With love so sudden and so sweet,24 lines, 2 comments - I am! yet what I am none cares or knows,
My friends forsake me like a memory lost;19 lines, 4 comments - The thistledown's flying, though the winds are all still,
On the green grass now lying, now mounting the hill,13 lines, 1 comment - When midnight comes a host of dogs and men
Go out and track the badger to his den,40 lines, 1 comment - When once the sun sinks in the west,
And dewdrops pearl the evening's breast;14 lines - The rolls and harrows lie at rest beside
The battered road; and spreading far and wide28 lines
