Source of book: I own this.
Many years ago, my wife and I visited the Huntington Library when they had on display a selection of William Blake’s illustrations for Paradise Lost. Although we all likely had to read “The Tyger” - his most famous poem from Songs of Innocence and Experience - fewer people realize how great of an artist he was as well. One of my several copies of Divine Comedy has the Blake illustrations, and I can attest that they are stunning in person.
A couple of years ago, the Getty had a temporary Blake exhibit, and it worked out to take a day off work and combine that with an LA Phil concert. One of the works displayed was the original of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. The pictures were, of course, amazing. The text was a bit odd, but intriguing enough that I went ahead and found a slim paperback volume that had reproductions of the art along with a printed version of the text to make it easier to read.
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is fairly brief, with a succinct argument in favor of Blake’s own mystic and even revolutionary views on religion and philosophy. It was largely written as a response to Emanuel Swedenborg’s book of theology, Heaven and Hell. I didn’t go back and read that book, but glanced at a bit of Wikipedia regarding the author and his views. For his time, Swedenborg was himself a bit of a progressive in some ways, and in other ways seems to have been a proto-Joseph Smith with his visions of angels and claims of direct inspiration.
In any case, Blake disagreed strongly with Swedenborg’s idea that good and evil were completely black and white, totally separate. Blake, rather, saw lines as blurry, and also that God must have created evil if he created everything, which, well, is basically a sticky wicket for monotheism. Swedenborg, like Blake, seems kind of interesting as person as well, so I might have to do a little reading there some day.
So, on to the book. Unlike Songs of Innocence and Experience, this book isn’t strictly poetry. It has poetry to be sure, but also some prose. And a lot of art. It is a hybrid work in that sense.
I’m not going to try to summarize the book at all - I recommend reading it for yourself. Because the art and the poetry and the ideas are all facets of its meaning, I think it really has to be experienced as a whole.
That said, I will quote a few lines that I thought were particularly interesting. They are, alas, out of context, but perhaps a taste will be enough to get people reading this book.
First is the introduction, a poem that echoes Biblical prophetic poetry.
THE ARGUMENT
Rintrah roars and shakes his fires in the burden’d air,
Hungry clouds swag on the deep.
Once meek, and in a perilous path
The just man kept his course along
The Vale of Death.
Roses are planted where thorns grow,
And on the barren heath Sing the honey bees.
Then the perilous path was planted,
And a river and a spring
On every cliff and tomb;
And on the bleached bones
Red clay brought forth:
Till the villain left the paths of ease
To walk in perilous paths, and drive
The just man into barren climes.
Now the sneaking serpent walks
In mild humility;
And the just man rages in the wilds
Where lions roam.
Rintrah roars and shakes his fires in the burden’d air,
Hungry clouds swag on the deep.
A later section is entitled “The Proverbs of Hell.” There are two pages of them, but I will highlight a few. These two echo the Bible - the Proverbs.
In seed-time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.
I love that one. The application of the cycle of growing to knowledge.
The nakedness of woman is the work of God.
This one is a direct pushback against centuries of “christian” theology that explicitly taught that female bodies were shameful and dirty and defiling to a man.
The cistern contains, the fountain overflows.
That too is a good one. Be a fountain…
Think in the morning, act in the noon, eat in the evening,
sleep in the night.
Not bad advice in many cases. Definitely think before acting. And after acting, refresh body and soul.
As the caterpillar chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs on, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys.
Oof. I think that one may be a bit too accurate. And this one, which is a pretty good description of projection. (See: MAGA)
As the air to a bird, or the sea to a fish, so is contempt to the contemptible.
There is later a passage discussing the Prophets, imagining a conversation with Isaiah and Ezekiel (two of my favorites.) Blake asks a question that I too have pondered.
The Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel dined with me, and I asked them how they dared so roundly to assert that God spoke to them, and whether they did not think at the time that they would be misunderstood, and so be the cause of imposition.
Isaiah answered: “I saw no God, nor heard any, in a finite organical perception: but my senses discovered the infinite in everything; and as I was then persuaded, and remained confirmed, that the voice of honest indignation is the voice of God, I cared not for consequences, but wrote.”
I mean, isn’t it plausible that the ancient writers didn’t think they were writing a book that would later be venerated as the very words of God? That maybe they were, like writers now (including, perhaps, me) who are just trying to tell truth as we see it and believe it? And Isaiah’s righteous indignation at the mistreatment of the poor can indeed be seen as the voice of God, not because of a literal voice, but because of the nature of God as defender of the poor?
A later conversation occurs between the author and an angel. Perhaps the best line in the book is this one:
“The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.”
The book ends with another profound observation, with I think theologians and politicians (and all of us) would do well to ponder.
One law for the lion and ox is Oppression.
This was definitely a fascinating book, and one I may return to from time to time just to savor the proverbs and ideas.
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