English poet John Clare (1793-1864) In Our Time With Melvyn Bragg

John Clare: In Our Time
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Northamptonshire poet John Clare who, according to one of Melvyn's guests Jonathan Bate, was 'the greatest labouring-class poet that England has ever produced'. Clare worked in a tavern, as a gardener and as a farm labourer in the early 19th century and achieved his first literary success with Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery. He was praised for his descriptions of rural England and his childhood there, and his reaction to the changes he saw in the Agricultural Revolution with its enclosures, displacement and altered, disrupted landscape. Despite poor mental health and, from middle age onwards, many years in asylums, John Clare continued to write and he is now seen as one of the great poets of his age.
With
Sir Jonathan Bate
Provost of Worcester College, University of Oxford
Mina Gorji
Senior Lecturer in the English Faculty and fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge
Simon Kövesi
Professor of English Literature at Oxford Brookes University
Presenter Melvyn Bragg
Producer: Simon Tillotson.
John Clare 1793-1864
www.clarecottage.org/
John Clare, our most remarkable poet of the English countryside, was born in the village of Helpston, Northamptonshire and raised as an agricultural labourer.
Clare’s genius was his ability to observe and record the minutiae of English nature and every aspect rural life, at a time when enclosures were transforming the landscape and sweeping away centuries of traditional custom and labour.
Following great success with his first published poems (outselling even John Keats) Clare quickly became unfashionable, falling quickly into literary obscurity. The magnitude of Clare’s achievement and poetic genius was not fully appreciated until the recent publication of a first complete edition of his poetry, much of which had remained neglected in manuscript archives for 150 years. Now scholars worldwide regard him as one of our leading poets gradually affording the same status as reputed poet contemporaries such as William Wordsworth and S.T.Coleridge.
Clare’s birthplace and family home for many years was acquired by the John Clare Trust in 2005. Its transformation into an education and visiting centre celebrates Clare’s life and inspires visitors to share in his creativity, his passion for nature and the countryside and his environmental engagement.

[@elizabethdarley8646]

He must have been a beautiful hearted man full of patience and empathy.

[@zaygezunt]

A fine discussion about a great poet. Thank you for uploading this

[@ginajackson4122]

Thanks for uploading this. It was very interesting.

[@magmasunburst9331]

"I thought the seasons by Thompson was a great book as well. I discovered it because I started dealing old books. There are many great old poets that we have completely forget, mostly because they've been given bad reputations by bad academics. I find Martin Tupper and his proverbial philosophy to be interesting as well. Pollok is another great poet from old that nobody talks about today." Robert Scott Pearson, poet

[@519djw6]

*Does anyone know whether Clare met Keats? I think they would have had a lot in common: their love of poetry, their early determination to be poets, and their dismissal by the literary establishment--Keats as "cockney poet" and Clare as "the farmer poet."*

[@mdebailes-OK]

I too think that Clare is amongst our finest poets - I have 3 of his poems on my Channel which you may care to read "The Gypsy Camp" ~ kzbin.info/www/bejne/rnnddoWFeptorrs "Hoar Frost" ~ kzbin.info/www/bejne/g6nFm2ehbdZ6ma8 "I am" ~ kzbin.info/www/bejne/jJPQqoCjra-arJI

[@elizabethdarley8646]

John Clare included the local words for things such as clock o' clay for ladybird and something-barrels for long tail tits. Emmersail's Heath in Winter.

[@519djw6]

*Thank you for this! Unfortunately, when the "English Romantic Poets" are discussed, John Clare is often either omitted or treated as a "minor poet." In my estimation, he stands only second to Keats among this group.*

[@lewis5384]

*Second to Wordsworth

[@tiktokes8892]

Man stepped on the moon . Those were dreams for thousands of years . . Fly in the air like birds this Dream for thousands of years . Started doing thousands of jobs at a time Who ever dreamed for thousands of years . This journey of progress will be now From millions of years

[@peabodyfrost6258]

sorry, man never walked on the moon.

[@elizabethdarley8646]

No mention of females. No mention of how males and females worked and lived together. Ladies and young ladies also worked from the age of 8 in the farming world. There were SOME good people around but they had to be wealthy to be able to make a difference for a poverty stricken person of any type.

[@peabodyfrost6258]

slander, there is no evidence clare had syphilis.

[@elizabethdarley8646]

Quite! I am a truth freak and I always watch out to protect the good reputation of people until evidence absolutely proves the contrary.