Portrait of the poet as delusional charity patient

The life of 19th century poet John Clare was bookended by early years of toiling in the fields and final days marked by madness in a mental hospital. In spite—or perhaps, because of—his difficult life, Clare was extraordinary, says Robert Pinsky on Slate. Pinsky dissects two of Clare’s better know poems, “I Am" and the "The Badger" and makes the case for his superb yet subtle poetic talent. With lines like "I am the self-consumer of my woes," how can Clare not elicit our empathy?

He managed to publish a book of poems when he was in his 20s and he had a brief vogue as what people liked to call "The Peasant Poet" or "The Ploughman Poet." For a while, bemused rich people took him up and gave him little gifts of money, but this popularity eventually faded. Clare spent the last years of his life as a delusional charity patient in a relatively humane mental hospital.

That life story may have influenced responses to Clare's work. (He is one of those artists who has been repeatedly "discovered," and there may be a tendency for the terrible story of Clare's life to outweigh his memorable poems or reduce them to symptoms.) The related elements of poverty and madness, social injustice and genius, temporary celebrity and enduring art, make Clare a figure both heroic and enigmatic . . .