Overview

[In many ways, it is understandable that William Blake’s (1757–1827; DNB) notebook poem ‘When Klopstock England defied’ has never received a great deal of attention. To begin with, its subject, the late-eighteenth-century German poet Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock (1724–1803), is rarely read anymore, having been relegated to the footnotes in histories of German Romanticism. ¹ Beyond this, it is unclear how polished an effort the poem is. Blake apparently made no efforts to publish it in his lifetime, and the manuscript suggests that the text was never fully revised. Even if a definitive edition of the poem were available, its style and themes would probably ward off many potential readers, as Blake fills his tale with a flatulent god, ritualistic hexes, and juxtapositions of scatology and prophecy. All this aside, however, the poem has many amusing satirical moments, mocking not only Klopstock, but tales of the occult, current debates on the nature of the soul, and, in the end, the poet himself.