Not heaven exactly, as I said, and it's a shaky journey, she's questioning
the premises of the 'blue stairs' idea of art, hence her wry mentions of
reality, Popes etc. Tennyson - that too fits in with Wallace Stevens - his
love of late romantic bric a brac and the quasi religiosity of believing in
a fiction which you know to be a fiction. I wasn't trying to spoil it for
anyone!
James Thompson - the author of The Killer Inside Me too, don't forget. Big
influence on John Clare. I read Tom Leonard's book on his young brother, a
very fine critical biography, fascinating. Someone else trying to compete
with Tennyson, get out of the army, living in cheap lodgings, in love with
women beyond his station. An atheist, I seem to remember.
John
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