Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
"The Nature of my Work is Visionary or Imaginative; it is an Endeavor to Restore what the Ancients calld the Golden Age." -William Blake (Johnson/Grant,xxiv).
William Blake completed the manuscript of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, as well as the twenty-five accompanying engraved plates, in 1792. In the sense that the The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is a vision of a particular version of reality, it subscribes to one definition of the mythic, but also fulfills another as Birenbaum writes in Tragedy and Innocence: "...on a more specialized level..."true myth"...suggests a penentration to the essential nature of human experience, made by conspicuously violating features of observable reality" (112-3), [and] "...its truth is not told, it is revealed, it happens to one" (136). In the first half of the above statement, Blake acknowledges his role as mythmaker, and then relates his purpose. Joseph Campbell echoes Blake when he explains, "What the myths are for is to bring us into a level of consciousness that is spiritual," (14). And how is consciousness transformed? "Either by trials...or by illuminating revelations" Campbell answers (126), because the vision transforms the mythmaker who then uses the myth to bring visions to others. Yet Blake's goal is not simply philosophical but also aesthetic, for "...to see through the fragments of time to the full power of original being is a function of art" (Campbell, 228).
Though the The Marriage of Heaven and Hell has elements of satire in its "parodies of the Bible and of the religious teachings of Emanual Swedenborg...as well as assaults on popular images of heaven and hell" (Johnson/Grant, 81), it...
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... is in our human nature to learn, to grow because "Where man is not, nature is barren" (71); Humans create their own meaning, but it is largely through the flames of imagination, not the arrogance of reason.
Bibliography
Birenbaum, Harvey. Tragedy and Innocence. Wahington D.C.: University Press of America, Inc., 1983.
Blake, William. Selected Poetry. Edited by W.H. Stevenson. London: Penquin Books ltd., 1988.
Campbell, Joseph. The Power of Myth. New York: Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc., 1988.
Farrell, Deborah, and Presser, Carole, eds. The Herder Dictionary of Symbols. Wilmette, IL: Chiron Publications, 1978.
Johnson, Mary Lynn, and Grant, John E., eds. Blake's Poetry and Designs. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, INc., 1979.
Raine, Kathleen. Blake and Antiquity. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1977.
It is believed that the system of the Underground Railroad began in 1787 when a Quaker named Isaac T. Hopper started to organize a system for hiding and aiding fugitive slaves. The Underground Railroad was a vast, loosely organized network of people who helped aid fugitive slaves in their escape to the North and Canada. It operated mostly at night and consisted of many whites, but predominately blacks. While the Underground Railroad had unofficially existed before it, a cause for its expansion was the passage of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act. The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act allowed for runaway slaves to be captured and returned within the territory of the United States and added further provisions regarding the runaways and imposed even harsher chastisements for interfering in their capture (A&E). The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act was a major cause of the development o...
The phenomenon of the American Dream has been engraved into the American culture since perhaps the beginning of post-revolutionary America itself. The classic belief that if you work hard, you would be able to reap the material benefits of what you sowed, at least enough to live comfortably is a myth that has been propagated in many literary works, deconstructed in many American literary works as a mere myth. And in Arthur Miller’s The Death of a Salesman and August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson, we see such deconstruction of the American Dream take place through both plays’ showcasing of the many complexities of the American life, complexities that are not taken into consideration with the black-and-white narrowing of the American Dream. While hard work does make up a part of the equation, it does not make up the entire equation of a comfortable lifestyle. That manifestation of the many facets of the American Dream is shown in both Miller’s The Death of a Salesman and Wilson’s The Piano Lesson.
The reading this week dealt with minorities in America and America’s contradictory nature. It began stories of various Indian tribes who lost their land to the English settlers. The Choctaw and Cherokee Indians who were forced away from their homes towards barren stony mountains. Then Takaki switched his focal point to slavery and its significance within America’s past. Then, the sixth chapter ends with Irish emigration.
Tresiddier, Jack. Dictionary of Symbols: An Illustrated Guide to Images, Icons, and Emblems. San Francisco: Chronicle, 1997. 120-6.
Ferber, Michael. A Dictionary of Literary Symbols. Cambridge, England: Cambridge UP, 1999. Questia. Web. 28 Nov. 2013.
A reader of Sherman Alexie’s novel Reservation Blues enters the text with similar assumptions of Native American life, unless of course, he or she is of that particular community. If he or she is not, however, there is the likelihood that the ‘typical’ reader has images of Native Americans based upon long-held social stereotypes of the Lone Ranger’s Tonto and Kevin Costner’s “Dances With Wolves,” possibly chastened with some positive, homey images of the First Thanksgiving as well. However, Alexie’s prose forces one to apprehend Native American life anew, and to see Native Americans as fully-fledged individual characters, with wants and needs and desires, not as those who are simply stoic and ‘other.’
Natoli, Joseph. "William Blake." Critical Survey Of Poetry, Second Revised Edition (2002): 1-12. Literary Reference Center. Web. 17 Jan. 2014.
Allison, Barrows, Blake, et al. eds. The Norton Anthology Of Poetry . 3rd Shorter ed. New York: Norton, 1983. 211.
It has been acknowledged by many scholars that Yeats' study of Blake greatly influenced his poetic expression. This gives rise to the widely held assertion that Yeats is indebted to Blake. While I concur with this assertion, I feel that the perhaps greater debt is Blake's.
William Blake was a modern thinker with a recalcitrant political spirit. He used poetry and art as sociopolitical weapons, which were raised boldly against the establishment. These sociopolitical weapons, which began with him, are still used today in all types of artistic and political activities. Although known as a madman and a mystic, (Elliott) his art and his poetry were guided by the visions of radical change. Even today, his work is both relevant and profound. The brilliant approach he took with difficult political and moral topics created unique artistic representations that are very much as relevant today as they were when Blake first adopted their use.
Allen Gunn, Paula. “We Are the Land.” Native American Literature An Anthology.Ed. Marisa L’Heureux.Illinois:NTC/Contemporary Group Inc. ,1999.315.
The American Dream is something we all strive for, whether it is subconscious or outright, most all of our major goals in life fall along the same path towards wealth and power. Known as a national ethos of the United States, the American Dream is said to give the people opportunities of prosperity and success no matter what economic or social background they came from. The story, “The Death of A Salesman” by Arthur Miller tells the story of Willy Loman and his failure to achieve the American dream ending in his ultimate downfall. He is a salesman, living in New York city in the late 1940s, with his wife and two sons, often finding himself unhappy and struggling to discover his true identity in his version of American society. A key factor
Ferber, Michael. A Dictionary of Literary Symbols. Cambridge, England: Cambridge UP, 1999. Questia. Web. 12 Dec. 2013.
Kennedy, X. J., and Dana Gioia, eds. An Introduction to Poetry. 13th ed. New York: Longman, 2010. 21. Print.
Cirlot, Juan Eduardo. "E." A Dictionary of Symbols. New York: Philosophical Library, 1962. 91-93. Print