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Original in Fitzwilliam Museum The Marriage of Heaven and Hell Plate 1, Copy I |
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell embodies new communicative skills which Blake used to raise consciousness, not among his contemporaries, few of whom ever saw it, but among later generations. In Marriage of Heaven and Hell and in subsequent prophecies he describes a world of thought, imagination and reality foreign to the socially conditioned mind. He deconditions us and reprograms us, or in his language he attempts to raise us "into a perception of the infinite." (Cf Blake's conversation with Ezekiel in Marriage of Heaven and Hell: Erdman p. 39)
Marriage of Heaven and Hell celebrates Blake's discovery of his identity as a prophet and of the use of irony, which he likely learned from Isaiah. He called himself a devil, but that does not have the satanic implications that simpletons have ascribed to it; all his life Blake showed implacable enmity to Satan. Still perhaps his greatest weapon was the ability to turn conventional ideas upside down and let us see another reality beside the prevailing group-think. "Without Contraries is no progression". (Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 3; Erdman p. 34)
For example laws are for the protection of society - or sometimes for the advantage of those who make them. Wealth is virtue - or sometimes thievery. Worship is life giving - unless it's idolatrous. War is terrible - but also profitable. These are called antinomies. Blake called them contraries, and the "Proverbs
of Hell" in Marriage of Heaven and Hell express his realization that much of the world's thinking is illegitimately one sided. In a strange way Blake's vision showed him the other side of the coin. This is what he shared in the decades when he fought back.
Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 22, (E 43)
"A Memorable FancyOnce I saw a Devil in a flame of fire. who arose before an Angel that sat on a cloud. and the Devil utterd these words. The worship of God is. Honouring his gifts in other men each according to his genius. and loving the [PL 23] greatest men best, those who envy or calumniate great men hate God, for there is no other God. The Angel hearing this became almost blue but mastering himself he grew yellow, & at last white pink & smiling, and then replied, Thou Idolater, is not God One? & is not he visible in Jesus Christ? and has not Jesus Christ given his sanction to the law of ten commandments and are not all other men fools, sinners, & nothings? The Devil answer'd; bray a fool in a morter with wheat. yet shall not his folly be beaten out of him: if Jesus Christ is the greatest man, you ought to love him in the greatest degree; now hear how he has given his sanction to the law of ten commandments: did he not mock at the sabbath, and so mock the sabbaths God? murder those who were murderd because of him? turn away the law from the woman taken in adultery? steal the labor of others to support him? bear false witness when he omitted making a defence before Pilate? covet when he pray'd for his disciples, and when he bid them shake off the dust of their feet against such as refused to lodge them? I tell you, no virtue can exist without breaking these ten commandments: Jesus was all virtue, and acted from im[PL 24]pulse: not from rules. When he had so spoken: I beheld the Angel who stretched out his arms embracing the flame of fire & he was consumed and arose as Elijah. Note. This Angel, who is now become a Devil, is my particular friend: we often read the Bible together in its infernal or diabolical sense which the world shall have if they behave well I have also: The Bible of Hell: which the world shall have whether they will or no.One Law for the Lion & Ox is Oppression"
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