The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Angels and devils dispute the rules of thought in William Blake's mixture of verse, prose and visionary argument. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell begins with the fierce figure of Rintrah, then challenges familiar divisions between body and soul, reason and energy, good and evil. Its speaker treats opposing forces as necessary to human life, setting compressed arguments beside startling images of fire, animals and an unfolding natural world.

The Proverbs of Hell turn these ideas into brief, provocative sayings about wisdom, restraint, imagination and action. Elsewhere, invented encounters with prophets and an angel make religious authority and the limits of perception subjects for debate. A fantastic printing house, staffed by dragons, eagles and other beings, gives the transmission of knowledge a physical setting. Readers interested in poetry and philosophy will find a work that asks how inherited beliefs shape what people can see and create.