'Making My Self a Soldier':The Role of Soldiering in the Autobiographical Work of John Clare Neil Ramsey Recent discussions about the context of John Clare's writing have tended to focus on his relationship to a longer tradition of labouring-class poetry and questions of whether he can be rightly deemed a 'peasant' poet.1 Whilst the debate surrounding his relation to this literary tradition has elucidated much about his poetry, it has meant that less attention has been paidto other kinds of labouring-class writing as influences on his work. One context in particular that has remained unexplored isthe fact that Clare's poetry was published contemporaneously with a significant bodyof autobiographical writing by labouring-class soldiers. Not only does Clare's own autobiographical writing demonstrate a marked degree of interest in soldiering, but so too, there were remarkable similarities in the reception of Clare's poetry and this soldiers' writing. In order, therefore, to understand Clare's relation to a wider body of labouring-class writing in the period we need to take account of the important role that soldiering played in his work and his relationship to autobiographical writing by soldiers more generally. Given that, until recently, studies of the Romantic period have generally neglected to examine the cultural influence of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars in Britain, it is not surprising that little attention has been paid to the idea of soldiering in John Clare's life, poetry or autobiographical works.2 His biographers have largely ignored his interest in soldiering and have habitually failed to provide anything more than a cursory overview of the time he spent in his local militia towards the end of the Napoleonic Wars. They have also declined to examine the connection between soldiering and his earliest developments as a poet.3 Meanwhile, there has been little commentary about war, battles or soldiering in criticism of Clare's poetry, despite the fact that he wrote a number of poems on these subjects. However, a close reading of Clare's autobiographical works shows that soldiering played an important role in his imaginative life and is intimately bound up with the ways in which he accounted for his early development towards writing poetry. Clare repeatedly romanticized the idea of soldiering, allowing it to operate as an imaginative space into which he could project visions of an alternative identity. Soldiering ultimately functioned for him, when he joined the militia, as a site within which he would test his sense of being a man and a writer. In this respect, Clare's self-representation as a soldier paralleled that of other soldier memoirists whose work appeared in the years following the Napoleonic Wars. Such autobiographies offered labouring-class men the opportunity to create stories about identities that lay outside of their class status. Soldiering had not, traditionally, been highly [End Page 177] regarded in Georgian society. Although military victories were widely celebrated, the army itself was commonly viewed as a tool of state oppression and soldiers were held in some contempt as petty criminals or licentious drunkards.4 Typically, only those men who were otherwise unable to find employment became soldiers; as the military historian Michael Glover has noted, 'conditions in the rankswere so deplorable that only "the very worst members of society" could be persuaded to volunteer'.5 Though officers in the army originated from much wealthier backgrounds, and were regarded by the army and society more generally as gentlemen, the rank and file of the army had little social status. They were paid a minimal wage and were subjected to a disciplinary regime that many contemporaries considered unduly brutal. J.E. Cookson suggests that the soldier was regarded as an outcast from society who had 'relinquished the freedoms of civilian existence for slavery, exile, and (very likely) horrible death'.6 The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars are commonly viewed, however, as leading to a much greater popular involvement in the political life and defence of the nation.7 The threat of invasion by the French particularly meant that the auxiliary armed forces in Britain were greatly expanded during the war years and the government undertook the establishment of volunteer units and...