William Blake in popular culture
William Blake's body of work has significantly impacted countless writers, poets and painters, and his legacy is often apparent in modern popular culture.[1] His artistic endeavors, which included songwriting in addition to writing, etching and painting, often espoused a sexual and imaginative freedom that has made him a uniquely influential figure, especially since the 1960s. Far more than any other canonical writer, his songs have been set and adapted by popular musicians including U2, Jah Wobble, Tangerine Dream, Bruce Dickinson and Ulver. Folk musicians have adapted his work, and figures such as Bob Dylan,[2] Alasdair Gray and Allen Ginsberg have been influenced by him. The genre of the graphic novel traces its origins to Blake's etched songs and Prophetic Books, as does the genre of fantasy art.
Literature
Blake's illustrated books were much imitated in the early twentieth century, and the emergence of radical ideas about alternative futures heightened the appeal of Blake's prophetic literature. Aldous Huxley took up the idea of "The Doors of Perception", in a 1954 book of the same name about mind expansion through recreational drug use. C.S Lewis took up the theme of Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell in the preface of his book "The Great Divorce", in which he describes Blake as a "great genius". W. B. Yeats edited a collection of Blake's poetry and considered himself the inheritor of his poetic mission.
Blake's painting The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in the Sun (1806-1809) and the poem Auguries of Innocence both play a prominent role in Thomas Harris' novel Red Dragon (1981), in which the killer Francis Dolarhyde has an obsession with the painting. Dolarhyde imagines himself 'becoming' a being like the Red Dragon featured in the paintings.[3]
Blake and his wife Kate are the major characters in Ray Faraday Nelson's science fiction novel "Blake's Progress" (1975), which subsequently was extensively rewritten and republished as "Timequest" (1985). William Blake's mapping of London in Jerusalem inspired London psychogeography from the work of novelist Iain Sinclair to biographer Peter Ackroyd and poet Aidan Dun.
Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses (1988) contains a brief episode in which the characters discuss Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell.[4]
Blake is described by Philip Pullman as one of three major literary influences on His Dark Materials, along with Heinrich von Kleist and John Milton.[5] Pullman's stated intention was to invert Milton's story of a war between heaven and hell in the light of Blake's famous comment that Milton was "of the Devil's party without knowing it".[6] Pullman stated that he "is of the Devil's party and does know it."
Ed Bemand's novel Beheld (2006) references both "The Fly" and "The Tyger" and describes ideas of perception inspired by Blake's work. The Blakean city Beulah is featured in Angela Carter's The Passion of New Eve (1977) as an underground site for a female religious cult. Blake is a character in Tracy Chevalier's novel Burning Bright (2007), which centres on a family who live next door to him in Lambeth while he is writing Songs of Experience.[7]
In Orson Scott Card's series The Tales of Alvin Maker, William Blake was depicted under the name "Taleswapper", having the 'knacks' of story-telling, engraving, and simply being in the right place at the right time.
The crime writer Keith Heller has written several stories in which Catherine Blake solves crimes while William remains oblivious to her actions.
Comics and Graphic Novels
Blake is an extremely important figure in comic literature. Alan Moore cites Blake's work in V for Vendetta (1982-85) and Watchmen (1986-7]][8] William Blake also becomes an important figure in Moore's later work, and is a featured character in From Hell (1991-98) and Angel Passage (2001). In From Hell, Blake appears as a mystical and occultic foil to William Gull's aristocratic plot to murder the prostitutes of Whitechapel in London. Gull appears to Blake in two visions over the course of Moore's comic, and becomes the inspiration for "The Ghost of a Flea." Angel Passage was performed at the 2001 Tate Gallery exhibition of Blake accompanied with art by John Coultart.
Grant Morrison, R. Crumb, and J.M. DeMatteis have all cited Blake as one of their major inspirations. Comic designer William Blake Everett claims to be descended from Blake.[9][10] Blake's Urizen appears in an early issue of Morrison's Invisibles. Urizen also appears in Todd McFarlane's occult superhero comic Spawn.
Blake has been quoted in comic strips as well. In a weekday strip of Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin recites several lines from Blake's "The Tyger", while viewing a sleeping Hobbes (a tiger), lightheartedly alluding to the lines "Tyger, Tyger, burning bright..."
Television
In the episode "Full Frontal Nudity" (episode 8, season 1) of Monty Python's Flying Circus, produced in 1969, it is "Jerusalem" that must be sung to get a salesman to remove a bag over his head. Also, it is used repeatedly in the episode "Owl-Stretching Time" (Episode 4, Season 1) as Eric Idle sings it from the Cardiff rooms, Libya (although he replaces the word "feet" with "teeth"). After singing the line about "England's mountains green...." it cuts to a "Rustic monologue", which is broken up by the Colonel. Also, in the sketch "Salvation Fuzz/Church Police", when they arrest a man for murder, they "conclude this arrest with a hymn", and they proceed to sing this song. The song is also used in many other episodes of Monty Python's Flying Circus, and appears in The Fairly Incomplete And Rather Badly Illustrated Monty Python Song Book as "Jerusalem".
Films
In his movie, Mean Streets (1973), Martin Scorsese references Blake's poem 'The Tyger' when a young pet tiger makes Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro take refuge atop a couch, paralleling the grit and innocence of life in the city.[11]
In Jim Jarmusch's western Dead Man (1995), the central character played by Johnny Depp is named William Blake and allusions to Blake's poetry appear thematically as well explicitly after Blake (who has never heard of the poet) meets a Native American who is an admirer of the poet.[12]
A variation on a verse from Blake's "America: A Prophecy" appears in Ridley Scott's science fiction classic "Blade Runner" (1982), spoken by the android Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer). This has been interpreted as a way of linking Batty to Blake's mythic regenerative hero Orc.[13]
Blake's work resides in the background of Peter Care's The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys (2002); a copy of Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell was a gift from an orphan boy's father and a central symbol in the film. In the 2006 film 'Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby', Jean Girard quotes Blake's Proverbs of Hell, stating "the cut worm forgives the plow." The image of V escaping the fire at Larkhill in the Wachowski Brother's V for Vendetta (2006) is very similar to Blake images of Orc from the Illuminated Works (cf. Urizen plate 16; America plate 12), and an almost exact reproduction of, significantly, plate 5 (V, had Blake used Roman numerals to number his plates) of "The Gates of Paradise," titled, again significantly, "Fire."
The film versions of the novel Red Dragon, Manhunter and Red Dragon, both include the painting. In the first film the character played by Tom Noonan sports a tattoo on his chest based on Blake's image of the dragon hovering over the woman. The second film has the character (played by Ralph Fiennes) display a stylised version of the dragon tattooed on his back.
Music
Blake's poems have been set to music by many composers, including Ralph Vaughan Williams and Benjamin Britten. In the early twentieth century British Classical song writers regularly set his work for voice or choir. The most famous musical setting is Hubert Parry's hymn Jerusalem, which was written as a patriotic song during World War I.
With the emergence of modern popular music in the 1950s and 60s Blake became a hero of the counter culture. Dylan's songs were compared to Blake.[14]. Dylan also collaborated with Allen Ginsberg to record two Blake songs.[15] Ginsberg himself performed and recorded many Blake songs, claiming that the spirit of Blake had communicated musical settings of several Blake poems to him.[16] He believed that in 1948 in an apartment in Harlem, he had had an auditory hallucination of Blake reading his poems "Ah, Sunflower," "The Sick Rose," and "Little Girl Lost" (later referred to as his "Blake vision").
The Fugs set several of Blake's songs, and performed a "Homage to William and Catherine Blake", celebrating their sexual freedom.[17] Atomic Rooster used Blake's painting "Nebuchadnezzar" for the cover of their 1970 album, Death Walks Behind You.
Van Morrison mentions William Blake in his song "You Don't Pull No Punches, But You Don't Push The River" from his 1974 album, Veedon Fleece. Morrison also mentions Blake in "Summertime in England," a song from his 1980 album, Common One. Portions of the song are loosely based on his poem, And did those feet in ancient time. On his 1984 album, A Sense of Wonder, Morrison composed "Ancient of Days," possibly referencing Blake's famous painting. On the same album, Morrison's song, "Let The Slave," incorporates Blake's 1797 poem, "The Price of Experience." Morrison also mentions Blake in his song "Will I Ever Learn to Live in God?" from his 1989 album, Avalon Sunset, and "Golden Autumn Day" from his 1999 album, Back on Top.
Folk musicians also identified Blake as a precursor, mostly concentrating on the Songs of Innocence and Experience. Greg Brown released an album of selections from the Songs of Innocence and Experience (1986), and several Blake songs were included in Tangerine Dream's album Tyger (1987). Finn Coran's two albums of "The Blake Project" sets his songs, as does Jah Wobble's album "The Inspiration of William Blake". Loreena McKennitt used lines from the Poetical Sketches in her song Lullaby.[18]
Mainstream rock and pop has also drawn on Blake. U2's Joshua Tree album was originally intended to open with a track entitled "Beautiful Ghost," in which Bono recites 'Introduction to Songs of Experience' over a sombre instrumental; the song was ultimately cut from the final album, but appeared seventeen years later as an unreleased and rare track in The Complete U2 set on iTunes. Daniel Amos performed their song William Blake on their album Vox Humana in 1984. Bruce Dickinson's solo album The Chemical Wedding draws some inspiration from the works of Blake. In fact, many songs on it, such as The Book of Thel, have the same titles as poems by Blake. On the song 'Ap is like' by Apathy, he compares his song-writing skills to the poetry of Blake. The song can be found on Baptism By Fire. Also Enrique Bunbury from Spanish band Héroes del Silencio was influenced by Blake's work, with songs like El Camino del Exceso (The Road of Excess), Los Placeres de la Pobreza, Deshacer el Mundo and La Chispa Adecuada [19]
Heavy rock groups have been more likely to explore Blake's more difficult Prophetic Books. Il Trono dei Ricordi have released a Blake album, setting passages from The Book of Urizen and Visions of the Daughters of Albion. The black metal and experimental music group Ulver have released Themes from William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1998) setting large portions of the text.
The composer William Bolcom set the entire collection of the Songs of Innocence and of Experience in 1984, a recording of which was released in 2006. On two separate albums, composer, conductor and musician David Axelrod interpreted Blake's Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience.
Manchester group The Fall had a track on their 2000 album The Unuterable entitled "WB", a song about Blake's visions, taking several quotes from his work. Singer Mark E Smith had expressed his admiration for Blake on many occasions previously.
The swedish experimental/alternative/industrial band The Protagonist has a song called The Sick Rose (based on the poem) on their album Songs of Experience
References
- ^ Blake, Modernity and Popular Culture, Steve Clark and Jason Whittaker,(eds), Palgrave, 2007, Introduction: Blake, Modernity and Popular Culture; S.Clark & J.Whittaker
- ^ William Blake, in The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, by Michael Gray.
- ^ The Silence of the Lamb and the Tyger: Harris and Blake, Good and Evil, M.Gompf, in Blake, Modernity and Popular Culture, Steve Clark and Jason Whittaker,(eds), Palgrave, 2007
- ^ M.Green, 'This Angel, who is now a Devil, is my particular Friend': Diabolic Friendships and Oppositional Interrogation in Blake and Rushdie, Blake, Modernity and Popular Culture, Steve Clark and Jason Whittaker,(eds), Palgrave, 2007.
- ^ Fried, Kerry. "Darkness Visible: An Interview with Philip Pullman". Amazon.com. Retrieved 2007-04-13.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Mitchison, Amanda (2003-11-03). "The art of darkness". Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 2007-04-12.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help); Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ In the forests of the night, Tracy Chevalier moves on from Vermeer to Blake in Burning Bright, by Clare Clark, The Guardian, 10 March 2007
- ^ Roger Whitson, Panelling Parallax: The Fearful Symmetry of William Blake and Alan Moore Garth Ennis also cites Blake's work in the Punisher MAX one shot titled The Tyger. As an apparent homage to Blake's importance in Moore's work, a framed copy of Blake's watercolor "Elohim Creating Adam" can be seen when Evey first explores V's hideout in the recent film version of V for Vendetta
- ^ William Blake and Visual Culture, Roger Whitson, in ImageText; Inderdisciplinary Comic Studies, 2006 Blake had no children, though Everett says he is a distant relative.
- ^ Interview with William Blake Everett's daughter
- ^ Script of Mean Streets
- ^ Roger Ebert, review of Dead Man
- ^ Gerrlinger, C, Fiery the Angels Fell: America, Regeneration and Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, Australasian Journal of American Studies
- ^ , William Blake, in The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, by Michael Gray.
- ^ Dylan/Ginsberg sessions
- ^ Ginsberg Sings Blake
- ^ pop culture references to Romantic literature
- ^ Loreena McKennitt - Lullaby
- ^ "Influencias en las letras de Héroes del Silencio".