Introduction

Ecology with religion: kinship in John Clare

“…With his John Clare: Flower Poems (2001), Simon Kövesi drew a generation of readers to Clare by pointing out his attention to natural detail and pattern as 'evidence of divinity, of a maker' that oversees a world 'of micro-cosmic ecosystems, and humanity's relationship with and effect upon them'. 45 Tim Chilcott too notes Clare's 'imaginative leaps from cosmos to cowslip' in his edition of Clare's 1841 poems; and Nicholas Birns records a 'chant of personal and even cosmic discovery' throughout his well-anthologised 'The Flitting'. 46 Jonathan Bate also invokes the 'cosmic situation' Clare's poetry captures by reflecting on Gaston Bachelard's reading of the 'cosmic implications' of bird nests.…”