"Poets had moved in this country once": John Mulgan and Romantic Poetry

Abstract

In Part Two of Man Alone John Mulgan describes a farm in the fen country of Northamptonshire: “Poets had moved in this country once, Cowper and John Clare, but few poets moved there now.” The significance of the reference to these two poets, both of whom had been institutionalized for insanity and both of whom found solace in working the land, cannot be underestimated for Mulgan’s emotional characterization of the main character, Johnson. This essay focuses on some of Mulgan’s references to English Romantic poetry (William Cowper, John Clare, and Lord Byron in particular) and how these references evoke his melancholy frame of mind.