From Fin de Siècle Mysticism to Günter Brus's Provocations: William Blake in the German-Speaking Lands

Abstract

William Blake, fittingly called Pictor Ignotus (the unknown painter) by Alexander Gilchrist, one of his first biographers, in 1863,1 has risen from contemporary obscurity to worldwide recognition. Recent Blake studies testify to an increase in interest far beyond the confines of poetry. Blake’s reception as an elitist writer, exerting influence on authors like James Joyce or T. S. Eliot, is complemented by a far larger body of popular and artistic reactions, ranging from Jim Jarmusch’s film Dead Man (1995) to the cult band The Doors, named after the Romantic poet.2 Lines from Blake’s dense, proverbial poetry have found their way into Angela Carter’s and Salman Rushdie’s novels, and his paintingGlad Day/Albion Rose graces the cover of Michael Horovitz’s anthology Children of Albion (1969), which took its title as well as its rebellious poetic concept from the great Romantic model.3 Larrissy’s 2006 study of Blake’s literary reception as well as Clark and Whittaker’s 2007 volume of essays about the popular Blake cover important ground as far as English-language contexts are concerned. However, the wealth of reactions to Blake in English should not lead scholars to overlook the ripples he caused in other countries. For instance, a recent volume edited by Steve Clark and Masashi Suzuki, The Reception of Blake in the Orient,4 focuses not only on Blake’s relationship to orientalist discourses and postcolonial criticism but also on his reception in countries as varied as Australia and Japan. Furthermore, a number of journal articles deal with individual countries and authors.5 Since British Romantic writers – Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats, Walter Scott, Jane Austen – have