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.

Our first session, on 24^th Sept, will be as follows:

Professor Jason Whittaker (English and Journalism) ,

“Before ‘Jerusalem’: Blake’s stanzas from Milton, 1863 to 1915”

When Hubert Parry set Blake’s stanzas from the epic poem Milton to music in 1916, he created one of the most famous hymns of the twentieth century which, in more recent years, has often been mooted as an alternative English national anthem to God Save the Queen. By the time of Blake’s death the stanzas themselves were virtually forgotten. Alexander Gilchrist first brought them to a wider audience when he included the lines as an example of the “singular preface” and the lyric was reprinted at various points during Victorian and Edwardian periods. It was even set to music before Parry turned his hand to it, Walford Davis composing a version for the Morecombe Festival in 1908. As such, this talk will explore how lines beginning “And did those feet…”, detached from Blake’s original and obscure mythology and set against a background of British Israelitism and increasing imperial confidence, could be transformed into a proto-national hymn.

This session will take place at 5pm on Thursday 24th Sept in room MC0024, which is on the ground floor of the MHT Building. The MHT is number 2 on this map:

First of all, a quick announcement: as many of you know, Hannah Field is leaving the University and thus the C19 Group. I would like to thank Hannah for her amazing contribution over the last two years. We will try to struggle on without her.

Second, as agreed collectively, we are trying out a 5pm Thursday slot for this year. We can keep this decision under review and change it the following year if needs be, but hopefully this new slot will lead to fewer clashes with meetings and other research seminars. Here are the C19 meeting dates for next year:

Semester A

Week 1 (Thurs 24th Sept)

Week 5 (Thurs 22nd Oct)

Week 9 (Thurs 19th Nov)

Semester B

Week 2 (Thurs 28th Jan)

Week 6 (Thurs 25th Feb):

Week 9 (Thurs 17th March)

Week 11 (Thurs 14th April)

All meetings are 5pm in MC0024.