God Save the Ecchoing Green: The Uses of Imaginary Nostalgia in William Blake and Ray Davies

Abstract

This article examines Blake’s importance for our understanding of a certain type of subaltern ‘Englishness’ which is characterised by ‘imaginary nostalgia’ and an attachment to the local, and exemplified by the trope of the village green. It compares representations of the green in the work of Blake and Ray Davies and the Kinks in order to demonstrate the political consequences which attend the reinscription of the local (the green) as the national (Englishness).