19 October, 5pm UK Time
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Join BARS Digital for an evening of varied discussion focused around the poet, John Clare, including new archival discoveries, editing and class politics, global poetic legacy, and ideas of beauty in his poems.
Simon Kővesi: Grammar or Grammer? The making of John Clare
This paper considers an aspect of the building of John Clare in scholarship across the twentieth century, which has had a disproportionate impact on the way he has been presented and critically received. Simon offers a retelling of Clare’s editorial recovery by way of a check on the use of the past when put to contemporary political ends: in the first instance as a check on himself, but also as a stark example of what can happen if a mostly latent but politicised, partial perspective of the Romantic past takes root and becomes normalised, for decades. Simon hopes it is useful to remember what we risk, if we are not aware of the prejudices, contingencies, agendas – wars even – of our own times and what they might do to our scholarship, as we react, as we defend, as we pursue political ends or contemporary trends. The specific example of such partiality in critical work that Simon wants to examine, centres on language and class politics in the editing of Clare.
James Keech: News from the Archives
A rare and exciting discovery was recently made in Peterborough. An overseer of the poor book was discovered nailed to the roof of a local cottage. It is believed it had been in that place for just under 200 years. The book is significant, because there is an entry showing that John Clare, the famous 19th century peasant poet contributed towards poor relief. Join the Archivist James Keech from Peterborough Archives Service as he gives an introduction to poor relief in England from the 16th to the 19th Century. James will then give an introduction to the works of the internationally famous poet John Clare and how to access his original works at Peterborough Archives Service. James will also discuss the process of restoring a badly damaged important historical item to good condition.
Sam Hickford: Tracing John Clare’s Global Poetic Legacy
In this talk, Sam will discuss the importance of Clare’s work for various American poets, both within the experimental, free-verse tradition of John Ashbery and the formalistic impetus of Seamus Heaney. Sam will explore the range of how Clare’s work has been riffed upon by a variety of American poets, such as within the syntactical experimentation of Brenda Hillman, the theological sandbox of GC Waldrep, and the neo-pastoral versifications of David Baker. Charting a sprawling plurality of Clare’s legacy, and analysing hitherto unexamined poems, it will question the future of Clare’s global legacy.
Feride Ertural: Eighteenth Century Aesthetics and John Clare’s Poetry
This paper demonstrates the Burkean and Pricean concepts of beauty through John Clare’s “The River Gwash” and “Autumn.” The subjects of these poems are considered sublime, the forces of nature typically overwhelming to the poetic subject. Feride considers the ways in which time works in this dynamic: how does it alter an understanding of beauty and contentment, how does it contribute to producing the atmospherics of the sublime? Her analysis thus explores the correlation between time and the concepts of the beauty and the sublime in Romantic poetry.
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