William Hilton – John Clare (1820) – National Portrait Gallery, London, NPG 1469

John Clare (b. 13th July, 1793; d. 20th May, 1864) was an English farm labourer and poet. According to his biographer Jonathan Bate, Clare was “the greatest labouring-class poet that England has ever produced. No one has ever written more powerfully of nature, of a rural childhood, and of the alienated and unstable self.” CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…