John Clare

John Clare (13 July 1793 – 20 May 1864) was an English poet. The son of a farm labourer, he became known for his celebrations of the English countryside and his sorrows at its disruption. His work underwent major re-evaluation in the late 20th century; he is now often seen as a major 19th-century poet. His biographer Jonathan Bate called Clare "the greatest labouring-class poet that England has ever produced. No one has ever written more powerfully of nature, of a rural childhood, and of the alienated and unstable self."

Clare was born in Helpston, 6 miles (10 km) to the north of the city of Peterborough, on 13 July 1793. He was the elder of twins, but his twin sister died in infancy. In his lifetime, the village was in the Soke of Peterborough in Northamptonshire and his memorial calls him "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet". Helpston is now part of the City of Peterborough unitary authority.

Clare became an agricultural labourer while still a child, but attended school in Glinton church until he was 12. In his early adult years, Clare became a potboy in The Blue Bell public house and fell in love with Mary Joyce, but her father, a prosperous farmer, forbade them to meet. Later, Clare was a gardener at Burghley House. He enlisted in the militia, tried camp life with Gypsies, and worked in Pickworth, Rutland, as a lime burner in 1817. In the following year, he was obliged to accept parish relief. Malnutrition stemming from childhood may have been the main factor behind his five-foot (1.5 m) stature and contributed to his poor physical health in later life.

Clare had bought a copy of James Thomson's The Seasons and began to write poems and sonnets. In an attempt to hold off his parents' eviction from their home, Clare offered his poems to a local bookseller, Edward Drury, who sent them to his cousin, John Taylor of the Taylor & Hessey firm, which had published the work of John Keats. Taylor published Clare's Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery in 1820. The book was highly praised and the next year his Village Minstrel and Other Poems appeared. "There was no limit to the applause bestowed upon Clare, unanimous in their admiration of a poetical genius coming before them in the humble garb of a farm labourer."

On 16 March 1820, Clare married Martha ("Patty") Turner, a milkmaid, in the Church of St Peter and St Paul in Great Casterton. An annuity of 15 guineas from the Marquess of Exeter, in whose service he had been, was supplemented by subscription, so that Clare gained £45 a year, a sum far beyond what he had ever earned. Soon, however, his income became insufficient and in 1823 he was nearly penniless. The Shepherd's Calendar (1827) met with little success, which was not increased by his hawking it himself. As he worked again in the fields, his health temporarily improved; but he soon became seriously ill. Earl Fitzwilliam presented him with a new cottage and a piece of ground, but Clare could not settle down.

Clare was constantly torn between the two worlds of literary London and his often illiterate neighbours, between a need to write poetry and a need for money to feed and clothe his children. His health began to suffer and he had bouts of depression, which worsened after his sixth child was born in 1830 and as his poetry sold less well. In 1832, his friends and London patrons clubbed together to move the family to a larger cottage with a smallholding in the village of Northborough, not far from Helpston. However, he only felt more alienated there.

Clare's last work, the Rural Muse (1835), was noticed favourably by Christopher North and other reviewers, but its sales were not enough to support his wife and seven children. Clare's mental health began to worsen. His alcohol consumption steadily increased along with dissatisfaction with his own identity and more erratic behaviour. A notable instance was his interruption of a performance of The Merchant of Venice, in which Clare verbally assaulted Shylock. He was becoming a burden to Patty and his family, and in July 1837, on the recommendation of his publishing friend, John Taylor, Clare went of his own volition (accompanied by a friend of Taylor's) to Dr Matthew Allen's private asylum High Beach near Loughton, in Epping Forest. Taylor had assured Clare that he would receive the best medical care.

Clare was reported as being "full of many strange delusions". He believed himself to be a prize fighter and that he had two wives, Patty and Mary. He started to claim he was Lord Byron. Allen wrote about Clare to The Times in 1840: