The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, written between 1790 and 1793, is the most complex work of Blake's early years. It consists of 24 Plates (as well as three further Plates under the separate title “A Song of Liberty”) and has at its heart an opposition between Heaven, conceived as an image of restraint and passivity, and Hell, an image of energy and action. Both of these “contraries”, Blake claims, are necessary for human life; but there is little doubt as to which is more to his taste. In the fourth Plate we hear the voice of the Devil, making three crucial claims which in turn underpin Blake's own world-view:

1. Man has no Body distinct from his Soul; for that call'd Body is a portion of So

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Published 17 July 2001

Citation: Punter, David. "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell". The Literary Encyclopedia. 17 July 2001.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=232, accessed 9 February 2010.]

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