31 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 31 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if reason and desire need each other—and the Devil has something worth hearing?
In The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, William Blake brings prose, verse, proverbs, and comic visions into sharp collision. The opening poem, the Argument, follows a just man driven from his path. Then the Voice of the Devil challenges familiar beliefs about body, soul, and desire.
Blake's central idea is that contraries make a living mind possible. Good and evil, reason and desire become questions rather than settled answers. Through the Memorable Fancies and the Proverbs of Hell, he challenges churches that preach restraint and mocks the visionary Emanuel Swedenborg. The stakes are how we think, perceive, and live.
What you’ll discover
- Opposites that need each other Explore Blake's claim that opposing forces belong together rather than cancel each other out.
- Wisdom turned upside down Meet the Proverbs of Hell, whose short, sharp paradoxes unsettle familiar habits of thought.
- Fire seen another way Walk through imagined fires where Blake finds creative energy and angels see only torment.
- An angel meets resistance Enter a quarrel about eternity where an angel becomes a foil for Blake's questioning.
- A mind beyond restraint Consider how Blake links body, soul, and desire while challenging sacred codes and inherited beliefs.
Who will love it
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.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Progress needs opposites, not victory over one side
- Energy is life and reason is its boundary
- Wisdom comes through excess, action and experience
- Gods live in the human heart, and prophets knew it
- Clean the doors of perception to see the infinite
- Makers and devourers need each other as enemies
- Systems of angels fail, and the quarrel is fruitful
- Everything that lives is holy, and one law oppresses
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The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
by William Blake · 1790
A poet dines with Isaiah and Ezekiel, then drags an Angel through Hell to see whose fate is worse.
Medium levelUnder 2 hours to readEnglish
Excellent
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In short
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.
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell at a glance
- Reading time
- About 20 min15 min fast, 20 min slow
- Length
- 4,500 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1790by William Blake
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
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.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 14 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- First published
- 1790
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 20 min
- Level
- Medium level
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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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.
The author
William Blake
1757–1827 · English poet and artist
William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. He was born in London in 1757 and died there in 1827. He also lived in Felpham, Sussex, from 1800 to 1803. He published Songs of Innocence in 1789 and Songs of Innocence and of Experience in 1794.
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