Authors:
Bases its argument on the most comprehensive assessment of the critical landscape in John Clare studies to date.
Critiques the core issues in the established reception of John Clare - such as class, place, nature, sexuality, textuality - and through close analysis of symptomatic examples, theorises original responses and opens up new areas for debate.
Assesses the ways in which Clare has been placed by literary critics, and how he is used by contemporary green thinkers and creative writers.
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Table of contents (5 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
About this book
This book investigates what it is that makes John Clare’s poetic vision so unique, and asks how we use Clare for contemporary ends. It explores much of the criticism that has appeared in response to his life and work, and asks hard questions about the modes and motivations of critics and editors. Clare is increasingly regarded as having been an environmentalist long before the word appeared; this book investigates whether this ‘green’ rush to place him as a radical proto-ecologist does any disservice to his complex positions in relation to social class, work, agriculture, poverty and women. This book attempts to unlock Clare’s own theorisations and practices of what we might now call an ‘ecological consciousness’, and works out how his ‘ecocentric’ mode might relate to that of other Romantic poets. Finally, this book asks how we might treat Clare as our contemporary while still being attentive to the peculiarities of his unique historical circumstances.
Reviews
“Simon Kövesi’s John Clare: Nature, Criticism and History positions itself as an intervention in Clare studies, and in literary criticism more generally. … John Clare: Nature, Criticism and History is invaluable for its insights into the ways in which an ecological agenda might inform editorial and research practices.” (Matthew McConkey, Textual Practice, Vol. 32 (02), 2018)
Authors and Affiliations
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Oxford Brookes University , Oxford, United Kingdom
Simon Kövesi
About the author
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: John Clare
Book Subtitle: Nature, Criticism and History
Authors: Simon Kövesi
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-59183-1
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan London
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017
Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-230-27787-8Published: 14 August 2017
Softcover ISBN: 978-1-349-59185-5Published: 16 March 2020
eBook ISBN: 978-1-349-59183-1Published: 02 August 2017
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XII, 266
Number of Illustrations: 3 b/w illustrations
Topics: Nineteenth-Century Literature, Poetry and Poetics, British and Irish Literature