John Clare and the Imagination of the Reader [Hardcover]

This broad and original study of the full range of John Clare's work is the first to take seriously his repeated appeals to the judgement of future readers. A series of close readings reveals Clare's sophisticated poetics: his covert quotations, his careful analysis of the history, and his fascination with literary success and posthumous fame.Acknowledgements Introduction: Whose Clare? The Sociable Text The Natural Text and the Canon Time and Labour Audience and Haunting Imagination and Artifice Conclusion: Clare's Muse Notes Bibliography Index

'This book will be a touchstone of Clare criticism for the next generation of scholarship, and its lucidity ensures that undergraduates interested in Romanticism as much as Clare scholars will benefit from its complex argument and thoughtful readings' - Professor Alan Vardy, Hunter College and the Graduate Center, CUNY, USA

'There is no doubting Chirico's scholarship or depth of commitment steeped as he is in the breadth of Clare's writing. Indeed, much useful material is drawn from essays and letters, as Chirico builds up a picture of the philosophical landscape from which the poetry emerges'. - Jeff Branch, The Use of English: The English Association Journal for Teachers of English

PAUL CHIRICO is Lecturer in Eighteenth-Century and Romantic Literature at the University of York, UK, and has published many articles on John Clare. A former chair of the John Clare Society, he is leading a major project to establish Clare's birthplace as a cultural, educational and environmental centre.