The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is a book by the English poet and printmaker William Blake

William Blake

William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...

. It is a series of texts written in imitation of biblical prophecy but expressing Blake's own intensely personal Romantic

Romanticism

Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

 and revolutionary beliefs. Like his other books, it was published as printed sheets from etched

Etching

Etching is the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal...

 plates containing prose, poetry, and illustrations. The plates were then coloured by Blake and his wife Catherine

Catherine Blake

Catherine Blake was the wife of the poet, painter and engraver William Blake , and a vital presence and assistant throughout his life as an artist.-Life:...

.

The work was composed between 1790 and 1793, in the period of radical foment and political conflict immediately after the French Revolution

French Revolution

The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

. The title is an ironic reference to Emanuel Swedenborg

Emanuel Swedenborg

was a Swedish scientist, philosopher, and theologian. He has been termed a Christian mystic by some sources, including the Encyclopædia Britannica online version, and the Encyclopedia of Religion , which starts its article with the description that he was a "Swedish scientist and mystic." Others...

's theological work Heaven and Hell

Heaven and Hell (Swedenborg)

Heaven and Hell is the common English title of a book written by mystic Emanuel Swedenborg in Latin, published in 1758.The full title is Heaven and its Wonders and Hell From Things Heard and Seen, or in Latin: De Caelo et Ejus Mirabilibus et de inferno, ex Auditis et Visis.This book is a detailed...

published in Latin 33 years earlier. Swedenborg is directly cited and criticized by Blake several places in the Marriage. Though Blake was influenced by his grand and mystical cosmic conception, Swedenborg's conventional moral structures and his Manichean view of good and evil led Blake to express a deliberately depolarized and unified vision of the cosmos in which the material world and physical desire are equally part of the divine order, hence, a marriage of heaven and hell. The book is written in prose, except for the opening "Argument

Argument (literature)

An argument in literature is a brief summary, often in prose, of a poem or section of a poem or other work. It is often appended to the beginning of each chapter, book, or canto...

" and the "Song of Liberty". The book describes the poet's visit to Hell, a device adopted by Blake from Dante

Dante Alighieri

Durante degli Alighieri, mononymously referred to as Dante , was an Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem La commedia, later named La divina commedia ...

's Inferno and Milton

John Milton

John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...

's Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost

Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse...

.

Proverbs of Hell

Unlike that of Milton or Dante, Blake's conception of Hell begins not as a place of punishment, but as a source of unrepressed, somewhat Dionysian energy, opposed to the authoritarian and regulated perception of Heaven

Heaven

Heaven, the Heavens or Seven Heavens, is a common religious cosmological or metaphysical term for the physical or transcendent place from which heavenly beings originate, are enthroned or inhabit...

. Blake's purpose is to create what he called a "memorable fancy" in order to reveal the repressive nature of conventional morality

Morality

Morality is the differentiation among intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good and bad . A moral code is a system of morality and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code...

 and institutional religion

Religion

Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...

, which he describes thus:

The ancient Poets animated all sensible objects with Gods or Geniuses, calling them by the names and adorning them with the properties of woods, rivers, mountains, lakes, cities, nations, and whatever their enlarged & numerous senses could perceive.

And particularly they studied the genius of each city & country, placing it under its mental deity;

Till a system was formed, which some took advantage of & enslav'd the vulgar by attempting to realize or abstract the mental deities from their objects: thus began Priesthood;

Choosing forms of worship from poetic tales.

And at length they pronounc'd that the Gods had order'd such things.

Thus men forgot that All deities reside in the human breast.

In the most famous part of the book, Blake reveals the Proverbs of Hell. These display a very different kind of wisdom from the Biblical Book of Proverbs

Book of Proverbs

The Book of Proverbs , commonly referred to simply as Proverbs, is a book of the Hebrew Bible.The original Hebrew title of the book of Proverbs is "Míshlê Shlomoh" . When translated into Greek and Latin, the title took on different forms. In the Greek Septuagint the title became "paroimai paroimiae"...

. The diabolical proverbs are provocative and paradoxical. Their purpose is to energise thought. Several of Blake's proverbs have become famous:

"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom."

"The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction"

Blake explains that,

"Without Contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion,

Reason and Energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to Human existence.

From these contraries spring what the religious call Good & Evil.

Good is the passive that obeys Reason. Evil is the active springing

from Energy. Good is Heaven. Evil is Hell."

During a visit to a "printing house in hell," Blake learns that diabolic printing is conducted with corrosives (that is by etching). This method helps to "cleanse the doors of perception." Blake promises to adopt this "infernal method" in his own works back on Earth.

The book ends with a series of revolutionary prophecies and exhortations, climaxing into a fierce proclamation for the different peoples of the world to break the bonds of religious and political oppression.

Interpretation

Blake's text has been interpreted in many ways. It certainly forms part of the revolutionary culture of the period. The references to the printing house suggest the underground radical printers producing revolutionary pamphlets at the time. Ink-blackened print workers were comically referred to as "printing angels," and revolutionary publications were regularly denounced from the pulpits as the work of the devil.

Influence

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is probably the most influential of Blake's works. Its vision of a dynamic relationship between a stable "Heaven" and an energized "Hell" has fascinated theologian

Theology

Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...

s, aestheticians and psychologist

Psychologist

Psychologist is a professional or academic title used by individuals who are either:* Clinical professionals who work with patients in a variety of therapeutic contexts .* Scientists conducting psychological research or teaching psychology in a college...

s. Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley

Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. Best known for his novels including Brave New World and a wide-ranging output of essays, Huxley also edited the magazine Oxford Poetry, and published short stories, poetry, travel...

 took the name of one of his most famous works, The Doors of Perception

The Doors of Perception

The Doors of Perception is a 1954 book by Aldous Huxley detailing his experiences when taking mescaline. The book takes the form of Huxley’s recollection of a mescaline trip which took place over the course of an afternoon, and takes its title from William Blake's poem The Marriage of Heaven and Hell...

from this work. Huxley's contemporary, C. S. Lewis

C. S. Lewis

Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...

 wrote The Great Divorce

The Great Divorce

The Great Divorce is a work of allegory by C. S. Lewis that is complementary to Lewis' earlier book The Screwtape Letters.The working title was Who Goes Home? but the real name was changed at the publisher's insistence. The title refers to William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell...

about the divorce of Heaven and Hell, in response to Blake's Marriage.

According to Michel Surya, the philosopher Georges Bataille

Georges Bataille

Georges Bataille was a French writer. His multifaceted work is linked to the domains of literature, anthropology, philosophy, economy, sociology and history of art...

 threw pages of Blake's book into the casket of his friend and lover Colette Peignot

Colette Peignot

Colette Peignot was a French author who is most known by the pseudonym Laure, but also wrote under the name Claude Araxe.She was profoundly affected by the deaths of her father, brothers and uncle during World War I...

 on her death in 1938.

An allusion from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, depicting Aristotle's skeleton, is present in Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens was an American Modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as a lawyer for the Hartford insurance company in Connecticut.His best-known poems include "Anecdote of the Jar",...

' poem "Less and Less Human, O Savage Spirit".

The American rock band, The Doors

The Doors

The Doors were an American rock band formed in 1965 in Los Angeles, California, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore, and guitarist Robby Krieger...

, found their title through a quote from "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell": "If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite."

Norwegian experimental group Ulver

Ulver

Ulver is a musical group from Norway. Since their first, folklore-influenced black metal release entitled Bergtatt – Et eeventyr i 5 capitler , Ulver’s musical style has been fluid and increasingly eclectic, blending genres such as rock, electronica, symphonic and chamber traditions, noise and...

 incorporated the entire text in their fourth studio album Themes from William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Themes from William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Themes from William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is the fourth album by Norwegian experimental band Ulver. It is a musical setting of William Blake's book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, featuring guest vocals...

.

The Christian metal band A Plea for Purging

A Plea for Purging

A Plea for Purging is a metalcore band based out of Nashville, TN.-Biography:After forming in 2005, A Plea for Purging quickly gained a reputation for hard work, with a heavy touring schedule that included over 200 live shows in their first year together. They released the "A Plea for Purging EP"...

 released an album featuring much of the content featured in Blake's book, and sharing its name.

Marilyn Manson

Marilyn Manson

Marilyn Manson may refer to:* Marilyn Manson , an American rock musician* Marilyn Manson , the American rock band led by the singer of the same name...

, in 2011, read "The Proverbs of Hell" at the J. Paul Getty Museum

J. Paul Getty Museum

The J. Paul Getty Museum, a program of the J. Paul Getty Trust, is an art museum. It has two locations, one at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California, and one at the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, California...

's poetry event Dark Blushing.

Todd Rundgren's band, Utopia, has a track named "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" on their 1977 album, "Oops! Wrong Planet."

External links

• The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (text and images of the plates)
• The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (text and images of the plates)