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About 20 min to read.Inizia 90 giorni gratisA chi è rivolto
This is for readers who love bold poetry, mystical visions and arguments with religion. It suits anyone curious about English Romantic writing or the idea that passion and reason can work together.
Che cos’è questo libro
What if the villain of an old religious story is the hero, and the polite angel is the one who is stuck? In The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, William Blake stages that reversal.
Blake was an English poet, painter and engraver. He made this book in the 1790s, when France and America had overturned old powers. Its target is a very old idea: that goodness means obeying reason and that desire is sin. You will meet a Devil who speaks for energy, an Angel who speaks for rules, and a narrator who enjoys the quarrel.
In questo riassunto
- 1Progress needs opposites, not victory over one sideFree
- 2Energy is life and reason is its boundary
- 3Wisdom comes through excess, action and experience
- 4Gods live in the human heart, and prophets knew it
- 5Clean the doors of perception to see the infinite
- 6Makers and devourers need each other as enemies
- 7Systems of angels fail, and the quarrel is fruitful
- 8Everything that lives is holy, and one law oppresses
Punto chiave 1 di 8
Progress needs opposites, not victory over one side
The book opens with a short poem called The Argument. A figure named Rintrah roars and shakes his fires over a darkened landscape. A just man once walked a perilous path through the Vale of Death, and roses grew where thorns had been. Then the villain leaves his easy road and drives the just man out into the wilds. The sneaking serpent now walks about in mild humility.
Blake offers this as a picture of how a society treats its rebels. The poem ends with the same roar, as if the wheel is about to turn again.
Then Blake states the thesis of the whole book. Progress depends on opposing forces. Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate are all needed for human life. Religion calls the passive force that obeys reason Good, and the active force that springs from energy Evil.
Blake does not tell you to choose hell. The title speaks of a marriage. Think of a river and its banks. Without banks the water is only a flood, and without the push of the water the banks are only dry ground. Life moves forward only when opposing forces are both allowed to speak.
That’s 1 of 8 key points.
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About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 4,500 words
- Reading timeAbout 20 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary
- LanguagesEnglish and 12 other languages
Questions about Il matrimonio del Paradiso e dell’Inferno
What is The Marriage of Heaven and Hell about?
It argues that human life needs opposing forces such as reason and energy. Blake mixes poems, proverbs, and visions to challenge the idea that desire is evil and that obedience to rules alone makes a person good.
What are the Proverbs of Hell?
They are a page of short sayings that Blake says he collected while walking among the fires of Hell. They praise energy, action and bold experience, and they mock caution, priests and rules that hold back life.
Who is Swedenborg in Blake's book?
Emanuel Swedenborg was a Swedish visionary whose followers founded a church. Blake treats his writings as an empty cloth at a tomb and argues that he spoke only with Angels, never with Devils.
When did Blake write The Marriage of Heaven and Hell?
Blake made it in the 1790s, after the American Revolution and during the French Revolution. He engraved and printed the text and pictures himself, and the book reflects that mood of political and spiritual change.
What does the Marriage in the title mean?
It means joining opposites, here heaven and hell, reason and energy, without crowning one and punishing the other. Blake sees their meeting as the way to keep life moving and ideas alive.
Cite this edition
Blake, William. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-marriage-of-heaven-and-hell.
Blake, W. (2026). The marriage of heaven and hell. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-marriage-of-heaven-and-hell (Original work published 1790)
Blake, William. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-marriage-of-heaven-and-hell.
@book{blake2026marriage,
author = {Blake, William},
title = {The Marriage of Heaven and Hell},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-marriage-of-heaven-and-hell},
note = {First published 1790}
}
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