Kirke White, John Clare and Labouring-Class Poetry

Kirke White admired the rural poetry of the most popular poet of the day – the labouring-class former ‘farmer’s boy’ Robert Bloomfield, whose first two collections (1800 and 1802) sold over 30000 copies by 1811:[i]  ‘he is a pastoral poet’, wrote Kirke White to his brother, ‘and the simply sweet is what you are to … Continue reading Kirke White, John Clare and Labouring-Class Poetry

Henry Kirke White, 1785-1806