Sonnet 'I Love to see the
summer?
John Clare 1793-1864
Slide three links to video
reading on BBC Bitesize
F/H
John Clare
• John Clare (1793-1864) was a farm labourer from
Northamptonshire
• He taught himself by reading everything he could find as
he had no formal education
• Worked as a gardener at Burghley House near
Stamford, while writing poems for his first collection
• Clare really knew from experience what it was like to live
and work in the country (unlike most poets of this time)
• He has a positive view of nature, but does not idealise it,
because he knows the reality of the labourer's toil
• This Sonnet was written in 1841, but gives no hint
madness he suffered. Clare perhaps wrote it as a
release from his everyday troubles.
F/H
The Poem
• Themes
• Natural beauty
• Rebirth and new
beginnings
• Light
• Simple pleasures/Joy
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
F/H
Key terms
Metaphor
Simile
Anthropomorphism
Iambic pentameter
Rhythm & Metre
Sonnet form
Non-standard English
Sonnet 'I Love to see the summer?
March
marigolds
Nest of wild
leaves
I love to see the summer beaming forth
And white wool sack clouds sailing to the north
I love to see the wild flowers come again
And Mare blobs stain with gold the meadow drain
And water lillies whiten on the floods
Where reed clumps rustle like a wind shook wood
Where from her hiding place the Moor Hen pushes
And seeks her flag nest floating in bull rushes
I like the willow leaning half way o'er
The clear deep lake to stand upon its shore
I love the hay grass when the flower head swings
To summer winds and insects happy wings
That sport about the meadow the bright day
And see bright beetles in the clear lake play
Simple, colloquial (slang) language reflecting the
nature of the pleasure Clare is engaged in
F/H
Ditch or drain
to allow water
to clear away
from fields
familiar to
Clare due to
his work
The poem is about Clare's joy at the arrival of
summer.
Simplistic,
almost childlike opening
expressing the
sheer joy Clare
feels for
Summer and
nature’s beauty
I love to see the summer beaming forth
And white wool sack clouds sailing to the north
I love to see the wild flowers come again
And Mare blobs stain with gold the meadow drain
And water lillies whiten on the floods
Where reed clumps rustle like a wind shook wood
Where from her hiding place the Moor Hen pushes
And seeks her flag nest floating in bull rushes
I like the willow leaning half way o'er
The clear deep lake to stand upon its shore
I love the hay grass when the flower head swings
To summer winds and insects happy wings
That sport about the meadow the bright day
And see bright beetles in the clear lake play
This is a poem of strong visual images, very much a
picture drawn in words
F/H
Essentially, this
poem is a list
of the things
Clare loves
about summer.
Expressed
simply and in
the language of
a man who
implicitly
understands
the natural
world
This is NOT a sonnet! Who’d have guessed?
A sonnet is a
fourteen line
poem with ten
syllables per
line written in
iambic
pentameter
Sonnets are
generally
used as love
poetry.
What is the
effect of
Clare using
this form
here?
Sonnets usually have a
rhyme structure but not this
one:
AA,BB,CC,DD,EE,FF,GG
I love to see the summer beaming forth
And white wool sack clouds sailing to the north
I love to see the wild flowers come again
And Mare blobs stain with gold the meadow drain
And water lillies whiten on the floods
Where reed clumps rustle like a wind shook wood
Where from her hiding place the Moor Hen pushes
And seeks her flag nest floating in bull rushes
I like the willow leaning half way o'er
The clear deep lake to stand upon its shore
I love the hay grass when the flower head swings
To summer winds and insects happy wings
That sport about the meadow the bright day
And see bright beetles in the clear lake play
F/H
A
A
B
B
C
C
D
D
E
E
F
F
G
G
The rhyming
couplets
give a soft,
rhythmical
feel to the
poem.
Almost like a
nursery
rhyme and
song. Does
this fit with
the meaning
of the
poem?
Simple language describing the simple joy of nature but
the images the create a vibrant and vivid
This is a
sensory
poem. Note
which lines
link to which
senses. How
does Clare
create a full
picture of this
world?
I love to see the summer beaming forth
And white wool sack clouds sailing to the north
I love to see the wild flowers come again
And Mare blobs stain with gold the meadow drain
And water lillies whiten on the floods
Where reed clumps rustle like a wind shook wood
Where from her hiding place the Moor Hen pushes
And seeks her flag nest floating in bull rushes
I like the willow leaning half way o'er
The clear deep lake to stand upon its shore
I love the hay grass when the flower head swings
To summer winds and insects happy wings
That sport about the meadow the bright day
And see bright beetles in the clear lake play
F/H
‘shook’ not
shaken Clare
uses non
standard
Englishrevealing his
lack of
education
Is this because he was so
excited at what he saw he
didn’t think to punctuate;
does it show us his sheer
joy in nature?
No punctuation, this was
incredibly odd in 19th century
literature
Is this because
he was poorly
educated and
‘forgot’ to
punctuate?
I love to see the summer beaming forth
And white wool sack clouds sailing to the north
I love to see the wild flowers come again
And Mare blobs stain with gold the meadow drain
And water lillies whiten on the floods
Where reed clumps rustle like a wind shook wood
Where from her hiding place the Moor Hen pushes
And seeks her flag nest floating in bull rushes
I like the willow leaning half way o'er
The clear deep lake to stand upon its shore
I love the hay grass when the flower head swings
To summer winds and insects happy wings
That sport about the meadow the bright day
And see bright beetles in the clear lake play
F/H
Did he want to
impress upon his
reader the
breathless beauty
of nature by not
putting punctuated
pauses in?
Is this poem unsophisticated and repetitive or
cleverly structured to emphasise Clare’s point?
I love to see the summer beaming forth
And white wool sack clouds sailing to the north
I love to see the wild flowers come again
And Mare blobs stain with gold the meadow drain
And water lillies whiten on the floods
Where reed clumps rustle like a wind shook wood
Where from her hiding place the Moor Hen pushes
And seeks her flag nest floating in bull rushes
I like the willow leaning half way o'er
The clear deep lake to stand upon its shore
I love the hay grass when the flower head swings
To summer winds and insects happy wings
That sport about the meadow the bright day
And see bright beetles in the clear lake play
Most lines represent a complete train of thought but the idea
expressed hear ‘swings’ onto the next line. Why might this be?
F/H
What is the
effect of the
alliteration?
Does
mimick the
wind
whistling
through the
trees?
The metaphors and simile he uses are very much comparisons of
one thing to another that is very similar to it. In this way the
simplistic joy of the poem is maintained and reflect the poet’s
experience
Clare’s childlike view of
nature is
summed up as
he imagines
the insects at
play in the
same way as a
child might
I love to see the summer beaming forth
And white wool sack clouds sailing to the north
I love to see the wild flowers come again
And Mare blobs stain with gold the meadow drain
And water lillies whiten on the floods
Where reed clumps rustle like a wind shook wood
Where from her hiding place the Moor Hen pushes
And seeks her flag nest floating in bull rushes
I like the willow leaning half way o'er
The clear deep lake to stand upon its shore
I love the hay grass when the flower head swings
To summer winds and insects happy wings
That sport about the meadow the bright day
And see bright beetles in the clear lake play
Anthropomorphism of the willow and flower heads gives a laid back,
relaxed feeling to the scene that Clare has created
F/H
Comparisons
The Field Mouse Clarke
•Both poems describe a summer scene
and the thoughts it gives rise to
•Both use simple, everyday language,
• In The Field Mouse the scene is full
not of joy but of threat (The air hums
with jets)
•The ideas in the Clarke poem are
more complex, with the harvest scene
interrupted by thoughts of war
The Eagle Tennyson
•Natural beauty is presented in both
•Both are from the point of view of
an observer
•One is a real experience the other
is at least partly imaginary
What other poems and ideas could this be compared to?
F/H
Writing about the poems
• What might you want to say about the view of summer in this
poem? Briefly note down some points that you would want to include
in your essay.
•The poet begins his sonnet with a clear statement, I love to see the summer: he wants to
announce his feelings for the summer with all the passion of a lover.
•The lack of punctuation in the poem suggests he is so keen to express his ideas that they
all come tumbling out at once.
•He describes the whole view to us, from the wool sack clouds to the bright beetles. This
shift of perspective suggests that nothing escapes him: he is aware of every single summer
beauty.
•The poet provides us with several highly visual images, such as the marsh marigolds which
stain the meadow with gold. The word stain indicates how deeply the rich colour belongs to
the landscape – it will not come off.
•It is interesting that the poem ends on play. It is a word associated with childhood and
freedom, which is in complete contrast to Clare’s sad life at the time that this poem was
written. Perhaps this suggests that the summer helps to lift his spirits and remind him of
more joyful times.
F/H