Jerusalem

Blake, Parry, and the Fight for Englishness

Jason Whittaker author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Oxford University Press

Published:14th Jul '22

Should be back in stock very soon

Jerusalem cover

The stanzas beginning, 'And did those feet' are among the most famous works written by the Romantic poet and artist, William Blake. Set to music by Hubert Parry in 1916 and renamed, 'Jerusalem', this hymn has become an emblem of Englishness in the past century, and is regularly invoked at sporting events, public and private ceremonies, and, of course, as part of Last Night of the Proms. Yet when Blake first engraved his lines in his epic work, Milton a Poem, he had been tried for sedition. Likewise, although Parry was commissioned to compose his music as part of the war effort by the organization Fight for Right, he soon removed permission for that group to perform his hymn and instead gave the copyright to the women's suffrage movement. 'Jerusalem', then, is a much more contested vision of England's green and pleasant land than is often assumed. This book traces the history of the poem and the music from Blake's original verses, written in Felpham, via the turmoil of the First and Second World Wars, its recording history in the late twentieth century, and its use in political controversies such as the 2016 Brexit vote. An anthem for both the left and the right, Blake's own vision of what it meant to build Jerusalem in England is both strange and familiar to many who invoke it. As such, this book explores the deep complexities of what Englishness means into the twenty-first century.

This book is fascinating ... Blake the revolutionary was never more relevant * Michael Church *
Jerusalem is a wonderfully researched, enjoyable work about a cultural phenomenon of the utmost familiarity, and it performs its task very successfully...Whittaker proves an excellent, lucid guide to realms of almost unimagined obscurity. * Philip Hensher, The Spectator *
Whittaker produces fascinating and surprising insights. His analysis of the different ways that "Jerusalem" has been decontextualized and recontextualized serves as a comprehensive case study in reception history and highlights the complexities of national identity. * Choice *
A discussion of Blake's later, long poems is beyond the scope of this book, but arecognition of this sort of complexity and a fuller exploration of it in the earlier works would have enriched Fletcher's study. * Matthew Leporati, EUROPEAN ROMANTIC REVIEW *

ISBN: 9780192845870

Dimensions: 222mm x 145mm x 24mm

Weight: 436g

272 pages