Introduction: ‘Bring me my Arrows of desire’: Sexy Blake in the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

Sexy Blake seems like a cultural icon we should all know intimately by now. As a prophet of free love he was crowned to a throbbing beat in the 1960s and, decades on, not only has hazy influence made him ‘the patron poet of pop’ (Fallon 248) but he leads a statistical dance too: along with that other poetic party animal Rabbie Burns, Blake is ‘the most set English-language poet after Shakespeare’ (Davies, ‘Blake Set to Music’ 190). Rock and Roll! The contention that there is a Sexy Blake readily available to readers and viewers should surely be less controversial than belief in a Queer Blake — which, as a tag for an ostensibly heterosexual artist living in resoundingly homophobic times, packs a deliberately confrontational punch. Certainly, the rich and varied explorations of the rich and varied delegates to the conference from which this volume springs savoured Blake’s sexiness and touched upon many tender topics. Yet despite this event¹ we still inhabit a critical landscape which is curiously muted about Blake’s sexiness.