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List Price: $40.00Amazon.com's Price: $31.20 You Save: $8.80 (22%)Prices subject to change.
Availability: Usually ships in 9 to 12 days
Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 821.7
EAN: 9780374179908
ISBN: 0374179905
Label: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 672
Publication Date: November 15, 2003
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Sales Rank: 437436
Studio: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
The long-awaited literary biography of the supreme 'poets' poet'
John Clare (1793-1864) is 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, but until now he has never been the subject of a comprehensive literary biography.
Here at last is his full story told by the light of his voluminous work: his birth in poverty, his work as an agricultural labourer, his burgeoning promise as a writer--cultivated under the gaze of rival patrons--then his moment of fame in the company of John Keats and the toast of literary London, and finally his decline into mental illness and his last years confined in asylums. Clare's ringing voice--quick-witted, passionate, vulnerable, courageous--emerges in generous quotation from his letters, journals, autobiographical writings, and his poems, as Jonathan Bate, the celebrated scholar of Shakespeare, brings the complex man, his beloved work, and his ribald world vividly to life.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - A Very Fine Biography of Clare
Jonathan Bate's admirable biography of John Clare is worthy of this unique poet. There were moments while reading the first two hundred or so pages of John Clare A Biography when I began to sense I was residing in Clare's mind and footsteps which is truly a tribute to Bate's fine scholarship and narrative skills. Definitely worth reading and exploring.
Rating: - Absolutely Great
This is a wonderful biography of Clare. Bate not only paints a convincing picture of this largely self-taught genius, but he also provides illuminating information about the social context in which Clare moved. His speculations concerning Clare's mental illness are also on the mark. Take your time with this book. It's an enjoyable ramble through the fields and by the end you'll have a well-rounded picture of John Clare and a greater appreciation for his work.
Rating: - Fabulous Portrait
Endearing, moving and mysterious, this is as sensitive a portrait of John Clare as we are likely to get. Bate's love for his subject is obvious throughout the book, in which he succeeds so well at walking the line between adoration and accuracy. Teeming with observations such as "for Clare even a fishpond is saturated with feeling and memory," Clare's unusually intense absorption in nature is brought to light here with the kind of beauty and empathy only a fellow-writer such as Bate could achieve. ... Read More
Rating: - Fab
A magnificent bio of a fabulous poet. I got to page 167 or so before it occured to me to check what page I was on. When one forgets one is reading, one knows one is reading excellence.
This bio is excellence and this poet is sublime.
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Dewey Decimal Number: 821.7
EAN: 9780374179908
ISBN: 0374179905
Label: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 672
Publication Date: November 15, 2003
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Sales Rank: 437436
Studio: Farrar, Straus and Giroux