Question

assignment: read the two required poems, i am and still i rise, and complete the included questions. i am – john clare john clare was a poet, in the early 19th century, and the son of a labourer. he suffered from poverty and hunger, and followed in his fathers footsteps as a labourer before earning as a writer. he left school at 12, to work. clare struggled with mental illness for years, and the challenge of being torn between the two worlds of literary london and his uneducated home community. he was repeatedly institutionalized 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 oblivious host, like shades in love and deaths oblivion lost; and yet i am! and live with shadows tost into the nothingness of scorn and noise, into the living sea of waking dreams, where there is neither sense of life nor joys, but the vast shipwreck of my lifes esteems; and een the dearest - that i loved the best - are strange - nay, rather stranger than the rest. i long for scenes where man has never trod; a place where woman never smild 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. i am questions: (2 marks each.) 1. what is the main emotion in this poem?

Explanation:

The poem expresses feelings of isolation, as the speaker notes that no - one cares about who they are and friends have forsaken them. It also conveys a sense of despair with lines about the 'shipwreck of my life's esteems' and a longing for a place of peace away from the current state of scorn and noise.

Answer:

The main emotion in the poem is isolation and despair, along with a longing for peace.