The Nightingale’s Nest: Lamenting the Soul’s Enclosure
George Monbiot writes, and writes well, of one of my favorite poets, John Clare. Dirt-poor, little educated, ensconced deep in an ancient agrarian world that was being broken and transformed before his eyes, he made himself into one of the great English poets of the 19th century — although much of his best work was written after he had been committed to an asylum, for decades, and was not rediscovered until the 20th century. Another of my favorite poets, Robert Graves, was instrumental in rescuing Clare from oblivion, championing his work and making it much more widely known in the