Blake and the New Jerusalem: Art and English Nationalism into the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

For over a century, Hubert Parry’s hymn ‘Jerusalem’, taken from Blake’s stanzas that preface his epic poem Milton, has been a defining factor in the reception of Blake’s work. This article concentrates on the influence of the Blake–Parry hymn on arts and culture since the turn of 2000, concentrating on events such as the 2012 London Olympics, its various invocations as part of the EU Referendum, and visual responses to the Blake–Parry hymn as part of the 2016 exhibition ‘And Did Those Feet?’ at Roundhay, Leeds.