“I Am” (Magill’s Literary Annual 2004)
At a glance:
- Author: John Clare
- First Published: 2003
- Type of Work: Poetry
- Time of Work: The early nineteenth century
- Setting: The Northamptonshire region of eastern England
- Genres: Poetry, Lyric poetry
- Subjects: Language or languages, Authors or writers, Nineteenth century, Literature, Rural or country life, Poetry or poets, Mental illness, England or English people, Depression, mental, English language, Modernization, Mental institutions, hospitals or asylums, Great Britain, Industrialization
- Locales: Northamptonshire, England
O soul-enchanting poesy,
Thou’st long been all the world with me.
—“The Progress of Rhyme”
John Clare was born on July 13, 1793, in the village of Helpston (Clare spells it Helpstone) in the Northamptonshire region of eastern England near the market town of Stamford. When he was about twelve, he left school to work with his father as an agricultural laborer, an occupation he continued intermittently much of his early life. In 1806 he read James Thomson’s poems in The Seasons (1730), and this marked a turning point in his ambitions. The...
[The entire page is 2074 words long]
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