Clare and the Ubiquitous Editor

The publication history of all of John Clare’s work is, in the end, a history about editorial control and influence. Even An Invite to Eternity, written within the confines of a mental institution seemingly distant from the literary world, is not an exception to this rule, for it and Clare’s other asylum poems do not escape the power and problem of the editor. And, further, this problem of the editor is not one confined to the past, to the actions of Clare’s original publisher John Taylor or to W.F. Knight, the asylum house steward who transcribed the poetry Clare wrote during his 20 odd years of confinement. In fact, debates continue and rankle over the role of the editor in re-presenting Clare’s work to a modern audience: should the modern editor present the unadulterated, raw Clare manuscript or a cleaned up, standardized version as Taylor did? Only exacerbating and exaggerating this problem of editorial control in the present day is the fact that the rights to nearly all of Clare’s work is literally owned by one of his editors, Eric Robinson, whose vision of Clare dominates how the poet is presented today.

An Invite to Eternity was written around 1847, while Clare was an inmate at the Northampton General Lunatic Asylum, but this date is only speculative as the manuscripts of his asylum poems are not often dated. (1) “Invite” is part of what are referred to as the “Knight Transcripts” of Clare’s asylum work, poems written between approximately 1842 and 1850 (he was at Northampton from 1842 until his death in 1864). The house steward of the Northampton Asylum, W.F. Knight, befriended Clare, encouraged him to continue writing poetry and transcribed the drafts of those poems into this collection of manuscripts.

Knight, though simply attempting to copy over Clare’s work, works as an editorial filter on these poems, simply because the physical act of his reading and transcribing is imperfect. So, regardless of how carefully or conscientiously Knight tried to copy Clare’s work, it seems almost inevitable that his copies could have deviated from the originals, especially when we consider his discussion of his process: “the whole of them (are) faithfully transcribed to the best of my knowledge from the pencil originals many of which were so obliterated that without refering (sic) to the Author I could not decipher.” (2) The difficulty that Knight complained of, the problem of Clare’s legibility, is a complaint of many Clare scholars for Clare’s handwriting was often messy, his spelling often inconsistent. Robinson, for instance, discusses “the immense difficulties that every editor of Clare encounters: the sheer bulk of material, the intricacies of much of the handwriting …(and) the apparent disorder of Clare’s creative processes.” (3) Very few original manuscripts of Clare’s own exist from this period, making it impossible to compare Knight’s version of the poem to the raw Clare text.(4) An Invite to Eternity is one of the poems for which this problem exists. Robinson speculates that Knight could perhaps have destroyed the originals since so few actual manuscripts exist, though they could simply have been lost, ruined or given away. (5)

In the face of this initial filter of editorial alteration, Geoffrey Grigson makes a case for Knight’s accuracy: “Knight’s transcripts are probably more reliable than has generally been allowed; and may well have been read over by Clare himself – who filled in a line of two of one poem in his own hand.”(6) The evidence that Clare corrected “one poem” is not particularly convincing – there are at least 800 poems in the Knight transcripts (7) – though it does support Knight’s statement that he had to “refer to the Author” in order to “decipher” some passages. However, Grigson’s assertion – unsupported by evidence, since he does not mention what poem it is that Clare corrected – contradicts Knight who discusses the diffuculty of getting Clare to edit himself: “whenever I have wished him (Clare) to correct a single stanza he has ever shewn the greatest disinclination to take in hand what to him seems a great task.” (8)

Though both Eric Robinson and Grigson agree that the first mention of “Invite” comes in a letter from poet and friend Thomas Inskip to Knight on July 23, 1847 – who says “I think (Clare’s) Invite to Eternity bordering on the sublime” – Grigson believes that the poem was written long before then.(9) According to him, “the position” of the poem “in the transcripts” as well as “its contents and manner” suggest that it was written before 1847.(10) He seems to offer 1844 as a better alternative, speculating that “Invite” was written around the same time as I am and several poems dealing with Clare’s lost childhood love Mary Joyce.(11) Indeed, “Invite” comes relatively early in the Knight transcripts (page 349 in Robinson and Powell), but since so few poems are dated, it becomes difficult to substantiate and fully assert this earlier date.

However, whenever it was actually composed, Inskip first published the poem on January 29, 1848 in Bedford Times. (12) Upon this 1848 publication, we can assume that Inskip undertook to edit and standardize the “raw” text of An Invite to Eternity that appears in the Knight transcripts, though exactly how that edition of the poem appeared is unclear. There is no indication in Robinson or any of the literature I found to suggest the context in which An Invite to Eternity appeared in the Bedford Times, nor is there any indication of the reception the poem received once published. Inskip did, though, publish several other Clare poems in the Bedford Times from 1847 to 1849 (13): I am was printed there in January 1848 as was “Song to Spring” (see below) in August 1848. (14)

Robinson also quotes another story that incorrectly places the composition of the poem in Spring 1848: On September 22, 1893, An Invite to Eternity, along with “Song to Spring,” “hitherto unpublished and bearing the date ‘May 1848,’” was published in Literary World along with a short narrative by “Mr. Jesse Hall of Wimbledon.” (15) “In the month of May, 1848,” Hall visited Clare at the asylum while on business in Northampton for “having seen and admired some of John Clare’s poems,” he “felt a strong desire to have an interview” with the poet.(16) During their “interview,” Clare “left” Hall “and went to the boundary wall with paper and pencil in hand, but very soon returned bringing a manuscript which he had written…” (17) Hall neglected to get copies of these apparently impromptu compositions, but Clare invited him to visit again and “intimated that he would in the meantime compose (Hall) two or three pieces.” (18) The next day, Clare called at Hall’s hotel and “on leaving … gave (Hall) copies of what he had written – viz., ‘Invite to Eternity,’ ‘Song to Spring,’ and a short piece on ‘Justice,’” (“Justice is slow, but as sure as Moses’ rod”) an acrostic on Hall’s name. (19) However, because he was “much engaged at the time,” Hall did not think to “forward what (Clare) had kindly given to” him until the 1890s.(20)

Although Hall’s supposition that An Invite to Eternity was written in 1848 must be wrong, as it had been published in Bedford Times several months earlier, this story reflects the influence it is possible for others to exercise on Clare’s work and his public image as poet. Though he did not (it seems) actually engage in literal editorial work (though we can suspect that someone must have, in order to standardize it for print), Hall’s framing of his encounter with Clare, especially his discussion of Clare’s apparently spontaneous poetic composition, frames the poem as it appeared in the Literary World in significant ways. By asserting An Invite to Eternity was composed in May 1848, Hall contributes to the “Romantic myth of spontaneous creation,” which many Romantics (Clare included) liked to feed, ignoring the “complex cultural weave of relationships” with “their later selves (as they revised), their friends, partners, reviewers, editors and publishers among others.”(21)

As Hugh Haughton notes, Clare himself liked to perpetrate this misconception about “spontaneous and solitary” composition, saying in one early asylum poem “I found the poems in the fields, / And only wrote them down” even though he was quite conscious and solicitous of his editor John Taylor’s collaboration in producing the finished poetic product.(22) Indeed, even though “Clare may not have approved all Taylor’s revisions,” he still “expected his poems to be revised” or at least, he did “until the onset of madness.” (23) In fact, Clare often seemed to think Taylor’s editorial changes completely necessary to his writing process, at one point saying “the fact is if I cannot hear from John Taylor now & then I cannot ryhme (sic).”(24) Part of Clare’s reliance on Taylor seems to stem in part from his own problems with revising, already remarked upon by W.F. Knight, above, but also discussed by Clare himself: “I always wrote my poems in great haste and generally finishd them at once, wether long or short for if I did not they generaly were left unfinishd what corrections I made I always made them & never coud do any thing with them afterwards.”(25) Further, Clare’s lack of formal education (he stopped going to school around age 10), constant struggles with grammar and feelings of inadequacy also contributed to his dependence on Taylor.(26)

It seems as though this myth of solitary composition has survived in the present day, where Taylor has been oft maligned for his editing choices, seen to compromise and distort the original Clarean vision.(27) Despite the assertions of some like Zachary Leader who believe that the importance of Taylor’s contribution should not be ignored in modern day editions of Clare, the unadulterated, unedited and “raw” Clare is what is authorized and generally preferred by present scholars. Leader argues that this insistence on “authentic texts” ignores “that unrevised or manuscript versions” of his poems are not “the versions Clare would have wanted published.” (28) This preference for the “un-Taylored” Clare is the reason that “modern editors have sought to purge Clare’s text from all contaminating traces of Taylor’s editorial intervention and to restore, where possible, the (implied) purity of the poet’s original manuscript texts.” (29) No matter what “state of draft of incompletion” they are in, these manuscripts are preferable to Taylor’s work simply because they are in Clare’s own hand. (30) Robinson and Powell’s Later Poems of John Clare even second guesses the Knight Transcripts – their main source of information – “‘correct(ing)’ Knight’s conjectured ‘corrections’ of Clare’s spelling and punctuation” to bring the texts closer to what they envision as Clare’s original product.(31) “Like other editors,” Robinson and Powell say, “Knight sometimes misreads a word,” which their own “familiarity with Clare’s practice” allows them to correct.(32) However, this “restoration” of the original text is still greatly inflected by these modern editors’ own speculations about Clare’s work, for since few original Clare manuscripts from this period exist, how are they to know the choices they make are in fact the correct ones? Further, who is to say that Knight did not have a “familiarity with Clare’s practice” after transcribing 800-odd of his poems?

This problem of modern editing practice and Clare is only exacerbated by the fact that Eric Robinson owns the rights to nearly all of Clare’s manuscripts and it is up to him to authorize any new publications of Clare’s work. As a result, his vision of Clare is what governs the poet’s re-presentation in modern scholarship. Though Robinson has owned "all rights whatsoever possessed by the company in the published and unpublished works of John Clare" since 1965 (purchased for £1!), it is only in the last 4 years or so that controversy over this literary monopoly has really picked up steam, featured in numerous articles and letters to the editor.(33) The controversy centers around the relative minutiae of copyright law: “Although, under existing law, copyright normally expires 70 years after a writer's death, Professor Robinson is claiming copyright for all works written by Clare but not published in his lifetime. Instead, he is claiming copyright for the 25 years from the date when he chooses to publish them.” (34)

The debate is not confined to the relative obscurity of academic journals, but is being aired in mainstream British newspapers like The Independent, The Guardian as well as The Times Literary Supplement. Clare scholar John Goodridge noted in The Guardian in 2000, “scholars have grumbled” for the last 35 years about Robinson’s “singular control” of Clare, “but it was not until last July (July 1999) that anyone did anything about it.”(35) This “anyone” was Simon Kövesi, a young Clare scholar whose Ph.D. Goodridge supervised, who published Clare’s Love Poems without asking for permission from Robinson.(36) Kövesi, who is also in charge of the John Clare Page, has not been alone in leading the charge on Robinson’s copyright: in July 2000, Seamus Heaney, Great Britain’s Poet Laureate Andrew Motion, Goodridge and a group of 25 other luminaries of the literary and scholarly world wrote a letter to the Times Literary Supplement, protesting Robinson’s control.(37) The controversy over Clare’s work is as of yet unresolved and very much alive: The Times Higher Education Supplement is currently hosting a debate moderated by Simon Kövesi until October 2003.(38) This debate over editorial control is only the latest event in a publication history of Clare’s work that spans centuries.

One of hundreds, possibly thousands, of works by Clare, An Invite to Eternity is still no exception to this history of editorial control and alteration. Any extant version of the poem bears the mark of another person’s hand – from Knight and Hall to Robinson and Grigson – no matter whether the editor claims to be simply copying or to be restoring Clare’s own intent.(39) In many ways, this ubiquitous editorial control over Clare reflects his own social standing as both peasant poet and “madman” and the problems of negotiating both of these roles within the literary world. Robinson, in priviledging the unpolished and mispelled peasant poet, reflects his own perceptions of Clare’s social role just as much as Knight’s transcriptions may have been driven by his perception of Clare as a once famous man, now insane and in need of help. Everyone claims to be presenting Clare’s own voice, Clare’s own vision, but how much of that voice is the editor’s? How much of that voice is saying what the editor would like to hear?

Notes

(1)The Later Poems of John Clare, 1837-1864. Ed. Eric Robinson and David Powell. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), 348; Poems of John Clare’s Madness. Ed. Geoffrey Grigson. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd: 1949), 230.

(2)Robinson, 269.

(3)Robinson, xi.

(4)Robinson, xi; Grigson 27-28.

(5)Robinson, xi.

(6)Grigson 28.

(7)Anne and John Tibble, John Clare: His Life and Poetry, (London: William Heinemann, Ltd., 1956) says there are at least 850 (181); Roy Porter “‘All madness for writing’: John Clare and the asylum.” John Clare in Context. Ed. Hugh Haughton, Adam Phillips, Geoffrey Summerfield. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) says 800 (265).

(8)Robinson 269.

(9)Robinson 348; Grigson 230.

(10)Grigson 230.

(11)Grigson 30-31.

(12)Robinson 348. Grigson gives the date as January 17, (230).

(13)Grigson, 230-233

(14)Robinson 610; Grigson 231.

(15)Robinson 347-348

(16)Robinson 348.

(17)Robinson 348.

(18)Robinson 348.

(19)Robinson 348.

(20)Robinson 348.

(21) Hugh Haughton, “Revision and Romantic Authorship: The Case of Clare” The John Clare Page.

(22)Haughton; “Sighing for Retirement,” Robinson, 19.

(23)Zachary Leader, Revision and Romantic Authorship (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 208.

(24)Leader, 210.

(25)Leader, 214.

(26)Leader, 214.

(27)Haughton.

(28)Leader, 213.

(29)Haughton.

(30)Hugh Haughton and Adam Phillips, “Introduction: Relocating John Clare,” John Clare in Context. Ed. Hugh Haughton, Adam Phillips, Geoffrey Summerfield. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994) 19.

(31)Haughton and Phillips, 19; see Robinson, xii.

(32)Robinson, xii.

(33)See The John Clare Page for a bibliography of news and journal articles concerning the controversy.

(34)Robert Mendick, ‘Poets Protest as US Scholar Corners Clare’, Independent on Sunday, 16 July 2000. Online.

(35)John Goodridge, “Poor Clare,” The Guardian, July 22, 2000. Online.

(36)Goodridge; The John Clare Page.

(37)‘John Clare’s Copyright’ (letter), Times Literary Supplement, July 14 2000, p. 15.

(38)See Times Higher Education Supplement

(39)See the Robinson version of the poem and the Grigson version, an example of the “standardized” Clare.