Queer Bedfellows: William Blake and Derek Jarman

Abstract

The association of Derek Jarman with the work and legacy of William Blake has been frequently noted in both scholarship and popular commentary.¹ More often than not, such commentary takes the form of brief critical observation or poetic meditation on the affinities connecting Jarman with Blake. However, it is not the goal of this chapter to furnish the complete catalogue of Blake/Jarman references and citations in print. Rather, my aims are critically to explore a range of the latter perspectives and to elaborate a fuller, more detailed analysis of the ways in which Jarman appropriates Blake as an artist and radical, located in a tradition of cultural dissent.

‘All revolutionaries are in many ways traditional …’

(Blunt, 10)