John Clare (1793–1864) was an English poet, the son of a farm labourer in Northamptonshire, celebrated in his lifetime as the 'Northamptonshire Peasant Poet'. His poems of nature and rural life, and the moving lyrics he wrote in an asylum, have made him one of the great English poets of the countryside.
Works
Poems Chiefly from Manuscript
Helpston
John Clare was born on 13 July 1793 at Helpston, near Peterborough, the son of a farm labourer. He went to school only briefly and worked as a ploughboy, gardener and lime-burner, writing poems in secret.
He witnessed the enclosure of the open fields around his village, which changed the landscape he loved; his poems record this loss.
Fame
His first book, Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery (1820), was a great success, and he was received in London by writers such as Charles Lamb. The Village Minstrel (1821), The Shepherd's Calendar (1827) and The Rural Muse (1835) followed with less success.
Torn between two worlds, short of money and suffering from depression, he became increasingly unstable.
The asylum
In 1837 he was admitted to an asylum at High Beach, in Epping Forest. In 1841 he escaped and walked some eighty miles home, eating grass on the way. He was then confined in the Northampton General Lunatic Asylum, where he spent the last twenty-three years of his life.
There he went on writing, including the poem I Am. He died on 20 May 1864 and was buried at Helpston.
Anecdotes
Walking home
Clare kept a record of his escape from High Beach in July 1841, the Journey out of Essex, describing how he slept in the open and ate grass from the roadside to stay alive.
Poems saved by a steward
Most of Clare's asylum poems were copied by William Knight, a steward at Northampton, who encouraged him to write and preserved hundreds of manuscripts.
Frequently asked questions
Where did John Clare live?
At Helpston, in Northamptonshire, and at Northborough, then in asylums at High Beach and Northampton.
What is 'I Am'?
A poem written in the Northampton asylum in which Clare expresses his loneliness and longing for peace.
Why is Clare called the peasant poet?
Because he was a farm labourer with little schooling, and his first books were marketed under that title.