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
4 - Clare and the Sublime
from Part I - Clare the Poet
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- 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 addresses the repeated appearances of the sublime in Clare’s verse – including his deployment of the word itself – as well as the ambivalent relationship Clare’s understanding and practice of the sublime has to eighteenth-century and Romantic aesthetic discourse. This entails consideration of major theorizations of the sublime in the period prior to Clare and the reception in the English tradition of classical conceptions of literary sublimity or ‘grandeur’. The example of Milton is significant here, as is the genre of epic and Clare’s apparent aversion to it. A number of examples from Clare’s poetry and prose are considered in detail. The chapter concludes with a reading of Clare’s famous ‘I am’ poems, suggesting that they do in fact continue the tradition of Milton’s Satan, his resistance to oppression, and ambivalent insistence on the power of the mind.
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- The Cambridge Companion to John Clare , pp. 60 - 74Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024