The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

[WICKES]

Has anyone read Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell? I am reading it at the moment (mainly because my hero Aldous Huxley so admired Blake). Has anyone else read it? I'd be interested to hear what you make of it...

[miyagisan]

We covered it in my Romantic lit class last month. I thinks it's great (it's on my must-read list), but don't feel bad if it confuses you. Blake purposefully contradicts himself over and over, challenging both conservative and progressive perspectives at the same time.

[PoeticPassions]

It is one of my favorite works of poetry, ever. I love Blake... ahh, there is a lot I could say about Marriage of Heaven and Hell... the search for the sublime, and the imagination as the sublime. Active vs. Passive...yet nothing is mutually exclusive, all contraries must exist.

Do you have any specifics you want to discuss? Because there is a lot in this one work one can talk about... I personally love the "proverbs"... some of them are really symbolic and complex, and some are pretty straightforward.

[Lokasenna]

Fantastic piece of poetry! I love his ideas about artistic impulse, and the link between energy and creation.

[WICKES]

Do you have any specifics you want to discuss?

Well, in the notes and the text the word 'imagination' appears repeatedly. What does Blake mean by imagination? The problem with words like 'the sublime' and 'imagination' is their vagueness. You see, when I think of 'imagination' I think of day dreaming, of Tolkein's Middle Earth or Lewis' Narnia.

Then we have the word 'energy'. Does he mean what we mean by energy?

Was Blake really advocating abandoning all restraint?

(Is it me or does he anticipate Nietzsche- morality is subjective and imposed by human beings, creative energy should be celebrated, we should recover reverence for humanity rather than external gods, the individual is everything etc etc...?)

[Wilde woman]

I read excerpts of it in preparation for my English lit GRE. There was one episode which struck me. When Blake and an angel show each other's futures. The angel tries to convince Blake to reform to avoid the horrors of Hell, but Blake reveals that the hellish vision the angel showed him is only a figment of the angel's imagination. Once the angel leaves, the vision disappears and Blake is able to replace it with his own.

[weltanschauung]

blake was an occultist, those are exoteric terms, as opposed to esoteric.

[David R]

I read excerpts of it in preparation for my English lit GRE. There was one episode which struck me. When Blake and an angel show each other's futures. The angel tries to convince Blake to reform to avoid the horrors of Hell, but Blake reveals that the hellish vision the angel showed him is only a figment of the angel's imagination. Once the angel leaves, the vision disappears and Blake is able to replace it with his own.

I love that part aswell. Thanks for reminding me of it.

[Cail192]

Fantastic piece of literature.