New Vistas: Blake, Swedenborg and Dante

Abstract

ALTHOUGH William Blake's exhilarating thoughts in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, c.1790, ‘to [devout] Angels look like torment and insanity’, such ‘insanity’ represents ‘Infernal wisdom’ (plate 6, E 35).1 Blake's foregoing phrasing satirically re-directs Emanuel Swedenborg's The Divine Providence (para. 223, p. 223), published in English in 1790, a work annotated by Blake (E 609), in which hell's ‘Insanities’ are ‘called Wisdom’ by ‘fiery Devils’—evil spirits dedicated to ‘diabolical Love’, according to Swedenborg. Swedenborg in The Divine Providence (paras 35, 36, p. 50) earlier denounces hell's intemperate ‘diabolical Crew’, endorsing instead the ‘twelve’ moderating ‘Steps’ that lead to the ‘Palace of Wisdom’, an edifice signifying ‘Goodnesses’ and ‘Truths’ (p. 51). Therefore, one of Blake's correcting ‘Proverbs in Hell’ in The Marriage (pl. 7, E 35) stipulates that ‘The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom’ (my emphases). Accordingly, in a precept of The True Christian Religion (vol. I, note 388), translated into English in 1781, a work from which Blake frequently borrowed (see E 546), Swedenborg speaks of ‘infernal Horrors’ ‘occasioned’ by a ‘Dragon's Phantasy’ (p. 462), wherein ‘black [may] appear white, and white black’, and, therefore, an ‘expert in Metaphysics’ (p. 462) and ‘Inchantment’ (p. 463) is consulted. Thus, in the above cosmological venue in The Marriage Blake's ‘Angel’ attempts to subvert Blake's vision by ‘metaphysics’ (Blake's word, pl. 19. E 42), for previously Blake's ‘phantasy was imposed’ upon his Angel (pl. 20, E 42).2 Hence, in The Marriage (pls. 17–18, E 41) this sanctimonious Angel-‘companion’ explains that Blake's ‘eternal lot’ in hell is located ‘between the black & white spiders’, gigantic insect-constellations that revolved in the ‘infinite Abyss’.3