Reading Order
Marriage of Heaven and HellThe Marriage of Heaven and Hell Reading Order
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (c.1790–1793) by William Blake is the most intellectually explosive text of the English Romantic period — a prose-poem in Blake's own engraved illuminated format that systematically inverts the moral and theological categories of Christianity and argues, through a series of 'Proverbs of Hell' and 'Memorable Fancies' (parodies of Swedenborg's Memorable Relations), that what conventional religion calls Evil is in fact the creative, energetic principle of life, and that what it calls Good is the passive, repressive principle of death. Blake's argument is conducted through paradox and excess rather than logical demonstration: 'The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom'; 'No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings'; 'The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction'; 'One law for the lion and ox is oppression.' The 'Voice of the Devil' section proposes that body and soul are not opposed but identical — that 'Energy is the only life, and is from the Body; and Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy.' The text is a direct response to Swedenborg's Heaven and Hell (1758), which Blake had annotated and largely rejected, and to the moral system of Milton's Paradise Lost — Blake's argument that Satan in Paradise Lost is the true hero (because he embodies Energy) anticipates Shelley's similar claim and inaugurates the Romantic tradition of the Satanic hero. The Marriage is the essential entry point to Blake's mythology.
Where to start
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell — the Princeton / William Blake Trust facsimile editions are the scholarly standard and reproduce the original engraved illuminations; the Oxford World's Classics Blake: Selected Poetry and Prose (ed. Alicia Ostriker) gives the most accessible text with good notes. Short (about 40 plates in the engraved version), aphoristic, and can be read in one sitting — but rewards rereading indefinitely.
Complete Marriage of Heaven and Hell Book List
- 1Buy
Blake: Complete Writings (Oxford Standard Authors)
William Blake (ed. Geoffrey Keynes)·1966·The scholarly standard text for all of Blake's writings — includes The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, all the prophetic books, the lyrics, and the letters; Keynes's edition remains the most authoritative single-volume collection, though the Princeton facsimiles are better for the illuminated books. - 2Buy
Songs of Innocence and of Experience
William Blake·1794·The lyric companion to The Marriage of Heaven and Hell — the Songs illustrate the same argument about the conflict between energy and repression, innocence and experience, but in lyric form; reading the Songs alongside The Marriage shows Blake's range from lyric brevity to satirical prose-poem. - 3Buy
Heaven and Hell
Emanuel Swedenborg (trans. George Dole)·2000·The Swedenborgian text that The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is directly parodying — Blake had annotated Swedenborg extensively and the Marriage is partly a systematic refutation; reading Swedenborg first makes Blake's parody more vivid and precise. - 4Buy
Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion
William Blake·1820·The culminating prophetic book that develops the mythology first articulated in The Marriage — Jerusalem is where Blake's ideas about Energy, Imagination, and Albion reach their fullest and most ambitious expression; the natural next step for readers of The Marriage who want to enter Blake's full visionary system. - 5Buy
The Varieties of Religious Experience
William James·1902·The philosophical work that most helpfully contextualizes the visionary tradition Blake inhabits — James's lectures on mysticism and the religion of the 'sick soul' versus the 'healthy-minded' illuminate the psychological dynamics that Blake dramatizes; the best philosophical companion to the Marriage for readers coming from outside the theological tradition.
Marriage of Heaven and Hell — Frequently Asked Questions
What is The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by Blake about?
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (c.1790–1793) by William Blake is a prose-poem in illuminated engraving that inverts conventional Christian moral categories, arguing that what religion calls 'Evil' (energy, desire, the body, excess) is in fact the creative principle of life, and what it calls 'Good' (reason, passivity, repression) is the principle of death. Through 'Proverbs of Hell' ('The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom') and satirical 'Memorable Fancies' (parodies of Swedenborg), Blake argues that body and soul are identical, that Energy is the only life, and that conventional morality is the oppressive instrument of priestcraft and tyranny.
What are the Proverbs of Hell in Blake?
The 'Proverbs of Hell' are a series of aphoristic paradoxes in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (c.1790–1793) by William Blake that argue for the creative energy of what conventional morality calls evil. Among the most famous: 'No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings'; 'The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction'; 'One law for the lion and ox is oppression'; 'Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires'; 'If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.' They are designed to shock the reader out of conventional moral categories rather than to be taken as literal prescriptions.
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