An Analysis of William Blake´s 'The Marriage of Heaven and Hell'

Thesis (M.A.) from the year 2006 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0, University of Hannover (Englisches Seminar), language: English, abstract: The present thesis deals with The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, one of William Blake's prophetic books. These are a series of texts, which were written in imitation of biblical books of prophecy, but expressing the poet's own personal romantic and revolutionary beliefs. It is not exactly known when the work was written. One assumes it was composed in London between 1790 and 1793 , a period of political conflict arising immediately after the French Revolution. S. Foster Damon argues that the American and French Revolution had an immense influence on Blake writing the Marriage: The American and French Revolutions promised a better world; and stirred Blake to a new enthusiasm, from which he deduced the theory that apparent Evil, such as War, is only Energy working against established order. This was a new perception of Truth; all his problems seemed solved by it; and he hailed the light triumphantly in another book, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1793) Apart from the opening Argument and the Song of Liberty, the entire book is written in prose. The book is about the first person narrator's visit to Hell, a concept taken by Blake from Dante's Inferno and Milton's Paradise Lost. Like many other of Blake's works, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell was influenced by the mysticism of Swedish theosophist Emanuel Swedenborg. Moreover, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is also in part a satire on Emanuel Swedenborg's writings, especially on Heaven and Hell from which Blake adapted the title, and on the New Jerusalem Church which was set up by Swedenborg's British followers.