The two-volume collection
The Village Minstrel, and Other Poems(1821) was the “Northamptonshire Peasant Poet” John Clare’s second publication, following
Poems Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery(1820). The collection is divided into two sections: “Poems”, which makes up the first volume and part of the second, comprises seventy-one poems of various forms, opening with the long, semi-autobiographical “The Village Minstrel”; the second section, which ends the second volume, is made up of sixty sonnets.
Like their predecessors, the poems in The Village Minstrel are broadly “descriptive of rural life and scenery”. Clare presents vignettes of rural work and leisure, describing the daily life of the village (“Rural Morning” and “Rural Evening”), its pastimes
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Citation: Smith, Andrew. "The Village Minstrel". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 15 February 2010 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=8054, accessed 26 November 2024.]
