Abstract:The present essay examines how the extraordinarily itinerant lyric “I” of the late Romantic poet John Clare constitutes a historical revision of the critical narratives of lyric containment and immediacy that consolidated from Victorian era onward and have recently been contested by lyric theorists of address, apostrophe, and history. Yet because Clare’s poetry critiques a particular historical moment when Britain saw itself as an enclosed island of enclosed estates, his work presents speakers whose irrepressi… Show more
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