Contraries, Proverbs, and Marriage: Understanding Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell challenges traditional moral concepts, portraying Hell as a realm of unrestrained energy opposed to the regulated Heaven. The book explores contraries rather than opposites, emphasizing the necessity of both devils and angels in human progression. The Proverbs of Hell provide provocative wisdom, energizing thought in a paradoxical manner.
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BLAKE'S THE MARRIAGE OF HEAVEN AND HELL ONE LAW FOR THE LION & OX IS OPPRESSION.
CONTEXT Blake composed Marriage in response to the French Revolution. Blake supported the Revolution and wanted England to release its repressed revolutionary energy too. Blake felt that spiritual, creative, sexual, and political energies were pent-up because of the emphasis on logic and reason, as well as conventional morality and institutional religious practices.
GOOD AND EVIL IN MARRIAGE The book describes a Blake-like narrator visiting Hell. Blake s Hell is not a place of punishment, but a place of unrepressed energy, opposed to the strict and regulated Heaven. Marriage challenges established ideas of right and wrong by inverting the conventional moral categories of good and evil. Devils are quicker, wittier, bolder, and more exciting than the angels, who lose every argument with the devils. Angels are often vain and dull. Attacks the unimaginative and simplistic established Christianity which favors the passive and repressive good instead of the active and liberating evil.
CONTRARIES, NOT OPPOSITES Marriage displays how Blake did not believe in opposites, but in contraries. Each person reflects the contrary nature of God, and that progression in life is impossible without contraries. According to Blake, two types of people exist: Energetic creators" = devils Rational organizers = angels Both types of people are necessary for progression.
PROVERBS OF HELL The Proverbs of Hell are the most famous part of the book. These display a very different kind of wisdom from the Biblical Book of Proverbs. Blake s proverbs are provocative and paradoxical with the purpose of energizing thought. Many of Blake s proverbs have become famous.
