Fiction Adaptation | Chosen Sonnet and Research

I have chosen to adapt John Clare's Trespass for my film, for a number of reasons.  Firstly, I feel I was able to draw the most varied interpretations from the source material, which has allowed my ideas to flourish into more succinct concepts for the narrative.  I was also drawn to the theme of isolation that I found in the sonnet which could be expressed by the new camera movements we have been learning.

Trespass

By John Clare

I dreaded walking where there was no path

And pressed with cautious tread the meadow swath

And always turned to look with wary eye

And always feared the owner coming by;

Yet everything about where I had gone

Appeared so beautiful I ventured on

And when I gained the road where all are free

I fancied every stranger frowned at me

And every kinder look appeared to say

"You've been on trespass in your walk today."

I've often thought, the day appeared so fine,

How beautiful if such a place were mine;

But, having naught, I never feel alone

And cannot use another's as my own.

The sonnet seems to follow a journey, which would compliment adapting into a moving picture.  The main themes of 'isolation' and 'otherness' could relate to  somebody travelling somewhere they should not be or even two people in a relationship that is frowned upon.  My favourite interpretation of this, however, is that this follows the story of a refugee who has arrived at a new country, only to be persecuted further, emphasising the sense of isolation found in the poem.

This was my first interpretation, and so I have looked further into the background of the sonnet and the poet, John Clare:

John Clare was an English poet, born in 1793 into a peasant family - his memorial labels him as the "Northamptonshire Peasant Poet".  Whilst still a child, he worked as an agricultural labourer and attended school at a local church despite his parents being illiterate.  In an attempt to save his parents from eviction, Clare offered some of his poems to a local bookseller, who passed them on to John Taylor of Taylor & Hessey (a publishing firm that had published for John Keats).

Clare grew up around the time of the Industrial Revolution, which saw many agricultural workers moving to cities to work in factories as work became more reliant on machinery.  The Agricultural Revolution also saw pastures plowed up, trees uprooted and common land enclosed.

In his later life, Clare was admitted to an insane asylum, where he would spend the final 20 years of his life.  He would rewrite poems by Byron and take credit for his work as well as claiming he wrote plays by Shakespeare, seeming to believe that he used to be these poets as well as several other personalities.

From my research, I can see the sense of isolation in Clare's work present in his life.  From being a successful and wealthy labourer to living in an insane asylum, Clare seems to have been ostracised throughout his life.  Therefore, I feel that I should pursue this idea of isolation and also a sense of 'otherness' in my poem.  I feel that my idea about a refugee who is persecuted in his new home would be a good route to take my adaptation.  I aim to diverge from the poem in its subject, but I will remain faithful to the original text by sticking to the basic narrative of a journey and by maintaining the themes of the poem.