Detailed Commentary: John Clare's 'An Invite to Eternity' Analysis

This essay offers a detailed commentary on John Clare's 'An Invite to Eternity,' examining the poem's unique characteristics and literary devices. The analysis focuses on Clare's use of punctuation, particularly the absence of question marks, and its impact on reader engagement and interpretation. The essay explores how this technique transforms the reader into an active participant, responsible for imbuing the poem with emotional depth and meaning. Furthermore, the analysis delves into the ambiguity of the poem's imagery and syntax, highlighting how Clare's unconventional style contributes to the poem's complexity and invites multiple subjective interpretations. The essay emphasizes the poem's title as a reflection of its invitation to the reader to engage with the text and create their own understanding of its 'eternity'.

A Commentary On John
Clares An Invite To Eternity
1

“John Clare: An Invite, to Eternity”
“An Invite, to Eternity” is a poem which was written by John Clare who was an English poet
and known for his celebrations of English countryside as well as sorrows at its disruption. In late
20th century, his poetry underwent reevaluation and now, he is often seen as 19th century poet.
The author was born in 13 July, 1793 and was died on 20th May, 1864. 'An invite to Eternity' is
known as one of the asylum poems of John Clare. His poem set itself up as extremely readerly
poem. It's a poem with remembering experiences of going through entire dissolution of any
identity sense, where even recalling own name is not possible. Alongside the description of Clare
of loss of Identity is desire for soulmate to share the journey of life. The poem at first glance
seems inviting and happy but once examined, its white aloof and depressing. Though, it appears
to be a straight address to anonymous 'maiden', but in reality, the poem "an invite to eternity" is
much more complex. Even though, the author of the poem is John Clare, true authority in context
of the meaning as well as the overall tone of it lies in reader's hand by the virtue of punctuation
of the poem as well as its utilization of obscure imagery. Through withholding the question mark
use in his poem, John Clare leaves the responsibility of emoting and structuring the text to
reader, enabling for variety of distinct ways in which the poem of author can be read logically
and orally.
Similarly, his daring superposition of seemingly unconnected images and ambiguous syntax
leaves question of interpretation completely in the hand of reader. In both the cases, the
engagement of reader is brought about through pursuit of a reader of question mark or question,
signifying that although physically absent in the text of poem, the question mark is depicting as a
symbol of intimacy between reader - poem and the main driving force behind the predisposition
to active readership. The lack of question mark or lack of punctuation is the most significant
reason for the readerly of poem. It has been suggested by the nature of language in the poem of
John Clare is that his poem is a question series post to 'sweet maid' he desires. Though, absence
of question mark declines the certainty of conclusion and provides the nature as well as the tone
of poem ambiguous. John Clare pleads his surrogate reader in the initial two lines of poem,
therefore:
2

Wilt thou go with me, sweet maid,
Say, maiden, wilt thou go with me
Since, no question mark is there in the extract, it is not possible for reader to draw any
kind of conclusion as per the tone as well as nature of sentence with which it must be read. As a
consequence, the lines are lifeless and flat and seems to plead the reader of poem to flesh them
out, punctuate them and therefore, add emotion and depth to them. The reader finds themselves
having to make decisions about when and how to pause in the lines and the best way to express
the tone of questioning of the lines. In the monarchy of orality, the expression possibilities are
endless. Relying on the way reader enunciates, Clare's tune of lines could be wistfully pleading.
The absence of punctuation inclines the poem of author towards orality, leaving the emotions
and construction of tone completely to the booklover such that whether the verse reads like
suicide note of psychopath or a deep love poem is up to the discretion of reader. A more
structural result of missing question mark is that the author’s poem actually resembles an
assortment of sentence fragments, and the reader has the responsibility for joining these
fragments in order to frame logical and complete sentences. Unfortunately, it is often frustrating
and difficult to decide where one sentence finishes and another starts in the poem. For example:
Say, maiden, wilt thou go with me
Through the valley-depths of shade,
Of night and dark obscurity;
Where the path has lost its way,
Where the sun forgets the day,
Where there's nor life nor light to see,
Sweet maiden, wilt thou go with me!
Where stones will turn to flooding streams,
The absence of question mark in text as a closure form leaves organisation question
completely open ended. Naturally, the main aim of the reader is to read the poem in attempt to
extract out meaning of it. Thus, he would select to organize the extract accordingly, to collect
fragments into complete sentence. It is a complicated process to decide where to place question
mark in the extract in the above lines and therefore mark off a sentence from another. The
absence of question mark consequences in a repeated crisis of structural understanding which
may lead to frustration and anxiety among readers, but more prominently, makes sure that the
3

reader comes nearby to completely appreciating the poem. The poem's content is similarly
frustrating in its ambiguity. The tendency of John Clare to join together contrary objects or
concepts that provides his poem obscure and ambiguous meaning. For instance:
Where stones will turn to flooding streams
Where plains will rise like ocean waves
In the above lines, the obscurity of imagery of John Clare is evident as how do stones
turns to flooding streams? What exactly does the author mean here from this line. The author
welds collectively almost violently these conflicting pictures of natural phenomena to discuss an
event which is not possible in real life. Though, in this practical impossibility of reproducing
each of the phenomena lies wealth of probable interpretations. Relying on the reader, the image
in above extract could represent a giant tsunami, an earthquake or simply a description of
Apocalypse. The choice of the author of sentence structure and syntax is likewise problematic
and therefore conducive to engagement of reader. In stanza III of the poem, the lines to be
consider:
Say, maiden; wilt thou go with me
In this strange death of life to be,
To live in death and be the same,
Without this life or home or name,
At once to be and not to be –
That was and is not –
Besides being a long sentence which lasts beyond this quotation, this verse is also most
liberally punctuated verse in the poem written by author. The another remark is all the more
intriguing in that commas are undeniably complicate and superfluous instead of simplify the
sentence structure. More significantly, one would examine the result of this selection of sentence
structure and punctuation on the meaning of poem written by Clare. Perhaps he wishes to focus
through punctuating the verse, that the actual world with its "lives, names and homes" is too
occupied of obstructive governing rules. Possibly, the intricate nature of sentence is meant to
increase a looping path and winding down that John Clare leads his fictional ‘sweet maid’. The
grammar itself in the poem becomes another medium through which the person who reads the
poem proposes an interpretation of the meaning of poem. It is an another ambiguity or a question
4

mark which the poem throws to the reader hopeful for a solution. The last two lines of the poem,
i.e.,
Then trace thy footsteps on with me
We're wed to one eternity
These lines describe intensely the question mark’s function in the poem to "wed" the
person who read the poem. Similar to the abstract thus far seemingly wanted "eternity" concept
which John Clare tempts his maiden with, the subtle question mark suspends flashily in the
aloofness to remind the individual who read the poem of the continuous potential for better
intimacy between the reader and the poem. “An Invite to Eternity” is certainly appropriately
titled. Similar to a big question mark, the poem of the author sets itself up to invite the reader to
examine it as well as bestow it with both emotional depth and meaning. The key insinuation of
the text being of the nature of a reader is that there is no complete objective of reading it
however rather, a limitless variety of subjective and distinct interpretations. The diverse
understandings of the poem, and the text of poem itself, would make up its "eternity", an
"eternity" that however problematic to understand at a meta-fictive or fictive level, might
possibly be effortlessly integrated to hypertext.
5

6