Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Editorial note
- INTRODUCTORY ESSAY
- 1 Discourse of the Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion (1724), Chapters I, IV, V, VIII (less paragraph 4), IX, X (extracted), XI
- 2 Discourses on the Use and Intent of Prophecy (1726), Discourses II and III
- 3 Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews (1753, translated from Latin into English by Richard Gregory in 1787), Lectures IV (extracted), V (less the first and last paragraphs), XIV, XVII (less the first two paragraphs and the second half of the lecture, viz. pp. 377–387 of the 1787 edition), XIX
- 4 The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790), ‘A Memorable Fancy’
- 5 Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit (1825), Letters V, VI, VII
- 6 On the Right Interpretation and Understanding of the Scriptures (1829) (ending at page xl of the 1874 edition)
- 7 On the Interpretation of Scripture from Essays and Reviews (1860), Section 3
- 8 Literature and Dogma (1873), Chapters IV–VI
- Notes
- Select booklist
4 - The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790), ‘A Memorable Fancy’
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 May 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Editorial note
- INTRODUCTORY ESSAY
- 1 Discourse of the Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion (1724), Chapters I, IV, V, VIII (less paragraph 4), IX, X (extracted), XI
- 2 Discourses on the Use and Intent of Prophecy (1726), Discourses II and III
- 3 Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews (1753, translated from Latin into English by Richard Gregory in 1787), Lectures IV (extracted), V (less the first and last paragraphs), XIV, XVII (less the first two paragraphs and the second half of the lecture, viz. pp. 377–387 of the 1787 edition), XIX
- 4 The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790), ‘A Memorable Fancy’
- 5 Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit (1825), Letters V, VI, VII
- 6 On the Right Interpretation and Understanding of the Scriptures (1829) (ending at page xl of the 1874 edition)
- 7 On the Interpretation of Scripture from Essays and Reviews (1860), Section 3
- 8 Literature and Dogma (1873), Chapters IV–VI
- Notes
- Select booklist
Summary
Three years after the publication of Gregory's translation of Lowth, Blake engraved The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. In that time the French Revolution had begun. Blake greeted it with his poem ‘The French Revolution’, cast in the prophetic Hebrew verse and imagery which Lowth had described to a wide readership, e.g.:
For the commons convene in the Hall of the Nation.
France shakes! And the heavens of France
Perplexed vibrate round each careful countenance!
Darkness of old time around them…
(lines 16 ff.)Blake must have known Lowth. There is no documentary evidence for it, but the internal evidence of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell alone is overwhelming. The ‘Memorable Fancy’ which is printed from it here occupies its plates 12 and 13. Plate 4, ‘The Voice of the Devil’, was subversive biblical interpretation. Plates 7 to 10, ‘Proverbs of Hell’, took the further step of biblical imitation. Plate II played off ‘the ancient poets’, who showed that ‘all deities reside in the human breast’ (Lowth not much radicalised), against that conventional target of Enlightenment biblical criticism, priestly system.
A third influence on The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, along with Lowth and revolution, was Swedenborg. But this was an influence exerted at the point of being disowned by means of satire. Blake turned Swedenborg's airy equilibriums into contraries, his vertical and static apocalyptic manner into the horizontal of current apocalyptic history. Lowth's legacy is much more active and central.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Critics of the Bible, 1724–1873 , pp. 103 - 104Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1989