Abstract
John Clare’s (1793–1864) perambulatory perception that is central to his poetics of openness gifts a song of a contingent and unfolding world. Clare’s insights translate and mediate pastoral for the very unplanned occasions in which he finds himself while walking. John Ashbery (1927–2017) enlarges upon Clare’s instinctual and affectivesense of place as he lays bare influences that erase an inherited politics of transatlantic loco-description. Clare and Ashbery foreground a modality of emotions that reveals a wider lacuna: a frame for positioning oneself in the world that is radically independent from dominant and less generous conceptions of selfhood. This modality brings into relief a new stage for loss, its many dimensions, and its analysis.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 35-49 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| Journal | Nineteenth-Century Contexts: an interdisciplinary journal |
| Volume | 41 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Jan 2019 |
| Externally published | Yes |