Last Thursday, Professor Jason Whittaker (School of English and Journalism) gave a fascinating lecture about the reception of William Blake in the ‘long’ nineteenth-century. The talk focussed on lyrics from Blake’s Milton, a Poem, lines which are nowadays better known as ‘Jerusalem’.

Jason discussed the confusion with which many mid-Victorians greeted Milton. As a result of this confusion,  Blake’s ‘Stanzas from Milton’ became detached from their original context – being commonly printed on their own without the eccentric longer poem. This decontextualisation was part of a long journey, at the end of which Hubert Parry would set Blake’s once-obscure lines to music – turning them into the famous hymn that we know today.

C19 members may be interested in this conference on nineteenth-century sculpture, which is taking place in Leeds on 3rd October:

http://www.henry-moore.org/hmi/events/object-lessons-conference

I’m delighted to announce this year’s programme for the Nineteenth-Century Research Group:

 

Semester A

 

Thurs 24^th Sept: Jason Whittaker (Lincoln), ‘Before “Jerusalem”: Blake’s stanzas from Milton, 1863 to 1915’ (MC0024)

 

Thurs 22^nd Oct: Phyllis Weliver (St Louis), ‘ “musical, I see!”: Daniel Deronda, the Aesthetic Critic and New Liberalism’ (MC0024)

 

Thurs 19^th Nov: Pietro Dipaola (Lincoln), ‘The Torch: A transnational anarchist newspaper’ (MB1013)

 

Semester B

 

28^th Jan: Julia Podziewska (Sheffield Hallam), ‘Wilkie Collins and the inheritance plot’ (MB1012)

 

25^th Feb: Group discussion on the ‘Manifesto of the V21 Collective’ (MB1012)

 

Please read this page beforehand, including the comments at the bottom: http://v21collective.org/manifesto-of-the-v21-collective-ten-theses/

 

17^th March: Lincoln PhD talk: Grace Harvey and Michelle Poland – Titles TBC (MB1012)

 

14^th April: Sibylle Erle (Bishop Grosseteste), ‘War, Napoleon and the Panorama’ (MB1012)

 

 

Refreshments will be served at 5pm, and the paper (or discussion, where appropriate) will begin at 5.15pm.

 

I hope you will agree that this looks like an exciting programme. We have an extra slot this year, which I think speaks volumes about how much this group has grown!

 

As previously noted, we are testing out the new slot of 5pm on Thursdays. Feedback will be very welcome on this as we go along.