John Clare and the Imagination of the Reader Book

Acknowledgements viii

Abbreviations xi

1 Introduction: Whose Clare? 1

John Taylor and Clare's early reception 5

2 The Sociable Text 23

Obscurity and the natural anthology 26

Keats and the circles of literary production 34

3 The Natural Text and the Canon 50

'To the Memory of Bloomfield': natural metaphor 54

Popularity and the canon 61

'Old Poesy' and the afterlife of language 68

4 Time and Labour 78

The uses of obscurity 82

Rural ruins and the leisured labourer 89

Taste and antiquity: the limits of knowledge 96

5 Audience and Haunting 107

Haunted narratives: 'The Fate of Amy' 110

Superstition and textual pluralism 119

Ghost stories and the haunted artefact 127

6 Imagination and Artifice 138

Compulsive composition and natural observation 143

Linguistic artifice and other lands 150

Disfigured landscapes 158

7 Conclusion: Clare's Muse 167

'To the Rural Muse' 169

Notes 181

Bibliography 206

Index 216