Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to John Clare
- The Cambridge Companion to John Clare
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Notes on Contributors
- Chronology
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Clare the Poet
- 1 On Clare and Lyric Song
- 2 Clare’s Forms
- 3 On Clare’s Translation of Perception to Poetry
- 4 Clare and the Sublime
- Part II Clare the Naturalist
- Part III Clare’s Image
- Part IV Influences and Traditions
- Further Reading
- Index
- Cambridge Companions To Literature
2 - Clare’s Forms
from Part I - Clare the Poet
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 November 2024
- The Cambridge Companion to John Clare
- The Cambridge Companion to John Clare
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Notes on Contributors
- Chronology
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Clare the Poet
- 1 On Clare and Lyric Song
- 2 Clare’s Forms
- 3 On Clare’s Translation of Perception to Poetry
- 4 Clare and the Sublime
- Part II Clare the Naturalist
- Part III Clare’s Image
- Part IV Influences and Traditions
- Further Reading
- Index
- Cambridge Companions To Literature
Summary
This chapter describes Clare’s attitude to form and surveys the various forms in which he writes. It emphasizes the variety of Clare’s formal achievement, showing how across his career he adopts different prosodic and generic conventions, including those of the sonnet, ballad, lyric, couplet, and ode. Running through all Clare’s poems, the chapter suggests, is a wariness of imposing excessive order upon the patterns of experience. The irregular beauty and emotional clarity of Clare’s poems emerge out of an effort to find a balance sympathetic to nature over artifice, spontaneity over control, and existing tradition over individual embellishment.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to John Clare , pp. 30 - 45Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024