THE ROLE OF NATURE IN JOHN CLARE' S POETRY

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

John Clare was thought for a short time during his life and career to be one of the great nature poets. Mistakenly though the reason for his popularity lie mostly in his upbringing and not in the value of his poetry, which though existing then as it does now, remained mostly unnoticed while overshadowed by the fashion of the time to view him as an oddity more than as a true poet. Now a resurgence is occurring and the poet's true worth and skill are being reassessed, In this paper I will discuss Clare and his objectives as seen through his nature poetry, termed by most as descriptive, but not limiting the scope to only those poems. Clare has a simple philosophy of nature and life and it is to be found after a manner in both the descriptive poems and those poems in which images of nature are used as objective correlative, I will show that to Clare nature is beautiful even in its smallest and most unassuming representatives. Also man is inextricably connected to nature and that same nature is eternal. The texts of the poems contained within this paper are mostly taken from the Selected Poems of John Clare edited by Geoffrey Grigson and the spellings and punctuation are those appearing in that volume.
Clare as a poet remains true to nature. Never delving into the overly romantic exploitation of other poets. Clare's nature is pure and self-sufficient, surviving in spite of and not because of man. By remaining true to nature he remained true to himself as well. Clare struggled to live, yet never struggled to write, but like his beloved nature, his spirit far outlived his body's usefulness and capacity. Clare himself was a truly honest man and was not burdened by the mongrel laws on flattery s[sic] page.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• Contents
• ABSTRACT = 43
• Ⅰ. Introduction = 44
• Ⅱ. The Role of Nature in John Clare's Poetry = 44
• 1. Clare's Perspective = 44
• 2. Nature to Clare the Man = 48
• 3. Poet's Duty to Nature = 48
• 4. Nature and God = 53
• 5. Nature to Clare the Poet = 53
• 6. Nature as Setting = 54
• 7. Nature Enduring = 55
• 8. Nature as Secondary Focus = 58
• Ⅲ. Conclusion = 60
• References = 61