Unlike Some
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A contemporary of Clare's, Byron, was famously described by a lover as mad, bad, and dangerous to know. Clare is famously mad. But was he? Or is that too easy? I know THAT is not the subject, but HE is the subject, so He incorperates THAT. Anyways, it's interesting.
I'd say that (Unlike Some) Clare was most certainly not Mad, and actually really very good (and, to round off the idea, and by the way, I would rather have liked to have known him, for I feel an affinity, which is the whole point of writing, isn't it? Why do you think I am writing this?)
Clare was a poet. I am a poet. I know what it is to think like a poet. A real poet. A poet with feeling, all 'straight from the heart'.
Chesterton's Gabriel Gale was a poet. And he was said to be mad.
But the whole point of Gabriel Gale, of John Clare (and, I suppose, of Me) is that they (and we) are not mad. We are poets. And we tend to think rather more and rather more freely than people generally do. So, rather than losing our wits, we gain them to such an extent that the rest of the population no longer understands us. And, in our world of mobocracy, the majority is said to be right, the minority wrong or insane. Whereas it is rather that they are blind and we can see. Or that we see things differently, but that they are the same things, we are not seeing things, so to speak, but seeing them differntly, so that is alright.
About the poetry. My God, what poetry! The ideas I can understand, whereas Byron seems to me just pretentious, hideously obtuse, trash. I am sorry if you like Byron (I am tempted to say for you, but I find that I already have, so never mind!), but I really have read very little of his work. But, somehow, that does not excuse him. For there was an immediate connection between Clare and I. Like there was with Oscar Wilde, and if you judge anything by HIS standards, you are sure to go right!
Byron's snobbery gets on my words. I am perfectly skint most of the time, and, apart from having a Dame as a grandmother (in the arts, darlink!) not in the least arisocratic. So far as I know. But I am no less noble than him! He was snobbish about Shelly (was it Shelly? Someone, anyhow). Indeed, Shelly I know for sure drowned when a boat Byron bought him sank. Rivallry, perhaps? Byron WAS mad, bad and dangerous to know. (My God what a character assasination! What am I doing! I am sure he never deserved this!)
Clare, anyway.
And that is the problem, people like Byron appear more enigmatic, darker and more exciting. The colour I associate with Clare is sky-blue. That is why people like Byron get read more.
Clare's poetry strikes a chord with those of us who feel things, above all.
And we are a rare breed, and need encouragement and companionship, and that is what is poems are to me.
Or we might really lose our marbles!
God bless Clare!
Quite seriously, and 'with feeling'!
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