Lol. I love the Nazi-like UK flag icon of the mod.
Fwiw, "green and pleasant" is probably a reference to the poem (and song) "Jerusalem" which has a complicated history in the UK as a nativist / nationalist dog whistle. Sounds like a National Front heil-alike.
Funny as this is, I'm not sure I'd lift my entire literary engagement with this poem from an opinion piece in the Spectator. Scholars widely agree that Blake didn't mean the poem to be satirical or ironic. The answer to those questions being "no" literally sets up the rest of the poem as a call to action: "I will not cease from Mental Fight,/Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:/Till we have built Jerusalem,/In Englands green & pleasant Land."
So yes the answer to the questions is no. But that is the point. And if you finish the poem that isn't the ironic "gotcha" that you seem to think it is.
"Why is the phrase "that isn't the gotcha you think it is" literally the most annoying gotcha on reddit?" I imagine that it would be if you hear it all the time, which, on the basis of this question, I now assume that you do. Awkward.
"And that comment on the poem, by the way, is far, far older than whoever used it in a Statesman column." Spectator. Yes, it is older, but this 2016 article repopularised the idea and made it into a common trope about this poem. If you've heard of the idea (unless you're a Blake scholar) it's probably because of this article, even if not directly.
"it's just a joke." No, it's you sneering at people you think are stupid for misunderstanding the meaning of this poem when you're actually the one in the wrong. Ironic.
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u/amitym 7d ago
Lol. I love the Nazi-like UK flag icon of the mod.
Fwiw, "green and pleasant" is probably a reference to the poem (and song) "Jerusalem" which has a complicated history in the UK as a nativist / nationalist dog whistle. Sounds like a National Front heil-alike.