5/10/07 - English Literature - William Blake

How are we to understand the arguments and ideas in Blake's work? He is a fundamentally difficult writer. Some of his work is incredibly simple and direct, e.g. "The Tiger." It is an energetic, evocative work of art, which is his trademark, and has made him very popular. He has inspired artists, critics and musicians, not to mention children. Even so, it is still difficult to read his work, no matter how mesmerizing it is.

There is something about Romanticism that is about rationality, yet it fails to give us an answer. In "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" ideas of rationality are contrasted with evocations of desire and fantasy, or Romanticism.

"The ancient tradition that the world will be consumed in fire at the end of six thousand years is true, as I have heard from Hell.
For the cherub with his flaming sword is hereby commanded to leave his guard at the tree of life; and when he does, the whole creation will be consumed, and appear infinite and holy, whereas it now appears finite and corrupt.
This will come to pass by an improvement of sensual enjoyment.
But first the notion that man has a body distinct from his soul is to be expunged; this I shall do, by printing in the infernal method, by corrosives, which in Hell are salutary and medicinal, melting apparent surfaces away, and displaying the infinite which was hid.
If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite.
For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern."
[William Blake, Plate 14 from "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell."

Blake has a millenarian anxiety that the world might end. The end of the world had been predicted by Swedenborg in 1757, the year that Blake was born. Blake wrote the poem when he was thirty-three, the same age as Jesus when he died on the cross. Blake thought this was significant; he draws parallels between himself and the Saviour. Blake produces in his poem a vision of eternal hell: one that is productive and creative, a little like Heaven. He satirizes Milton's Paradise Lost and the conventional image of Heaven and Hell. The voice of the narrator should not be equated to Blake himself. It is a diabolic voice, about to go on a fantastical journey through Heaven and Hell. It is not necessarily Satan, although the language is drawn from Milton's Satan in Paradise Lost. The voice is human, an inspired, insistent, tempting voice portraying the visions of Hell. Should we trust it? Is there another voice? Blake does not allow us to appeal to our senses because our soul is about to be expunged. He poem is a revelation, an epiphany.

What is it then, in relation to the Enlightenment? As the Enlightenment sought to overcome mythical doctrines in favour of rationality and empiricism in order to be free (Kant's "What is Enlightenment?"), so there is a little of the Enlightenment in the poem. The narrator says we will cast off the finite and corrupt. But notice the last line, which gives the narrator's advice to us. The image of the cave was significant in Enlightenment thought as it is drawn from Plato. Plato stated that reason brings us out of the cave so we see reality and the plain light of day. But the narrator of Blake's poem advises us instead to go on a journey with an angel, further into the cave.

"An Angel came to me and said: 'O pitiable foolish young man! O horrible! O dreadful state! consider the hot burning dungeon thou art preparing for thyself to all eternity, to which thou art going in such career.'
I said: 'Perhaps you will be willing to shew me my eternal lot, & we will contemplate together upon it and see whether your lot or mine is most desirable.'
So he took me thro' a stable & thro' a church & down into the church vault at the end of which was a mill; thro' the mill we went, and came to a cave; down the winding cavern we groped our tedious way till a void boundless as a nether sky appeared beneath us, & we held by the roots of trees and hung over this immensity, but I said: 'If you please, we will commit ourselves to this void, and see whether Providence is here also, if you will not I will.' But he answered: 'Do not presume, O young man, but as we here remain, behold thy lot which will soon appear when the darkness passes away.'"
[William Blake, from Plate 17, "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell"]

Why is Blake so interested in moving further into the cave?

"As when a traveller hath from open day
With torches passed into some Vault of Earth,
The Grotto of Antiparos, or the Den
Of Yordas among Craven's mountain tracts;
He looks and sees the Cavern spread and grow,
Widening itself on all sides, sees, or thinks
He sees, erelong, the roof above his head,
Which instantly unsettles and recedes
Substance and shadow, light and darkness, all
Commingled, making up a Canopy
Of Shapes and Forms and Tendencies to Shape,
That shift and vanish, change and interchange
Like Spectres, ferment and quiet and sublime,
Which, after a short space, works less and less,
Will every effort, every motion gone,
The scene before him lies in perfect view,
Exposed and lifeless, as a written book.
But let him pause awhile, and look again
And a new quickening shall succeed, at first
Beginning timidly, then creeping fast
Through all which he beholds; the senseless mass,
In its projections, wrinkles, cavities,
Through all its surface, with all colours streaming,
Like a magician's airy pageant, parts
Unites, embodying everywhere some pressure
Or image, recognised or new, some type
Or picture of the world; forests and lakes,
Ships, rivers, towers, the Warrior clad in Mail,
The prancing Steed, the Pilgrim with his Staff,
The mitred Bishop and the throned King,
A Spectacle to which there is no end."
[William Wordsworth, from Book Eighth of the Prelude, 711-41]

Wordsworth says we should walk into a cave with a flaming torch. As we get used to the dark, we see the reality and it is cold and lifeless. But even when we know we are inside a cave, we begin to notice the shadows flickering and our imagination can engage with them, both shadows and mind continually transforming. Romanticism continually journeys into the cave, and its emphasis is on the imagination. By using our imagination, we take on the role of God; we create the world. Romanticism is about exploring that creative faculty. The transformative power of art is explored by writers such as Blake and Wordsworth.