I+Am

= Introduction =

"I Am," is John Clare's most famous poem. He wrote it while he was staying at the Northampton General Lunatic Asylum, his second and last asylum he was admitted to. Neither his family nor friends visited him while he was living in the asylums, leaving Clare with general feelings of isolation and sadness. "I Am," perfectly describes the emotions of loneliness and change, emotions that many common folk can relate to. He consistently reminds his audience that he "is" still there, but he gets no response. By the end of the poem, the speaker quickly refers to death as being the ultimate escape from desolation. = I Am = I am -- yet what I am, none cares or knows; My friends forsake me like a memory lost:-- I am the self-consumer of my woes; -- They Rise and vanish in oblivion's host, Like shadows in love's frenzied stifled throes: -- And yet I am, and live -- like vapours tossed

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise, -- Into the living sea of waking dreams, Where there is neither sense of life or joys, But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems; Even the dearest that I love the best Are strange -- nay, rather, stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man hath never trod, A place where woman never smiled or wept, There to abide with my Creator, God, And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept, Untroubling and untroubled where I lie, The grass below -- above, the vaulted sky.

**Analysis:** __Lines 1-2:__ The speaker starts off by saying "I am" to let the reader know that he is alive even though no one seems to care or know what he is. All of the speakers friends have forgotten him like a lost memory. __Lines 3-4:__ The speaker is the only consumer of his woes, or feelings of sadness and depression. His woes come and then vanish into oblivion. As he said in line 2 "My friends forsake me like a memory lost" so he is left to deal with his sadness and inner pains on his own. Lines 5-6: The woes are like shadows suffering from the pains of love. The speaker then reminds the reader he is still alive but he compares himself to "vapours tost" or vapors tossed...into where? __Lines 7-8:__ The speaker is like vapors tossed into "scorn and noise" and "the living sea of waking dreams." People are treating him with "scorn" and "noise" meaning people feel contempt for the speaker and the things they say about him are not meaningful. "Waking dreams," can describe how lonely the speaker is. __Lines 9-10:__ The "living sea of waking dreams," has no "sense of life or joys," it is a "shipwreck" of everything the speaker once valued. A very depressing set of lines, basically stating his life offers him no joy, just recurring instances where he believes he has failed in some sense. __Lines 11-12:__ The people the speaker loves the most have become "stranger than the rest." This could mean not only have they become stranger, or different, to him, but they have also become strangers in the sense he does not know them any longer, assumed to mean they have also removed or separated themselves from him. __Lines 13-15:__ The speaker is looking for a place where no man has been and women never smiled nor wept. He wants to live with God in Heaven. __Lines 16-18:__ While living with God he will sleep like he did as a child and he will not trouble anyone and no one will bother him. Romantic authors, like Clare, often would write about emotional subjects and topics that could relate to the common people. Many of Clare's readers belonged to the poor class, or were the common folk, and could definitely connect to what Clare was describing in his poem "I Am." Clare, along with many of the romantic poets of his time, used imagery so well to explain his inner thoughts and feelings, especially in this poem. The second stanza exemplifies this, with the metaphors relating to the sea and shipwreck based on his feelings of dismay and sadness. The final stanza really shows his romanticism. Clare seems to be longing for death after battling sadness, whether it be inner demons or outside influences. Describing the environment he wishes to exist in, in heaven to be with God. "A Place where woman never smiled or wept," is very interesting because heaven one can take from it that heaven is neither a happy nor a sad place, just a place where existence continues. As the stanza progresses, he almost seems to be describing a purgatory-like place, rather than heaven, even though in line 15 he writes "There to abide with my Creator, God" as line 17 seems to be very content with just being.