Check it Out: Blake's political pornography
Suppose a terrorist group encoded
its mission statement in the centrefold
of Penthouse, and then distributed
it under the nose of an
über-religious FBI. What do you
suppose are the chances of them
being apprehended?
It was this sort of reasoning that enabled William Blake to freely criticize the religion, customs and politics of late 18th century England in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell while avoiding imprisonment. Blake printed his best-known work in 1793, directly after the French Revolution. Remember the security after 9/11? After watching thousands of aristocrats lose their heads over the Revolution (quite literally), the English Tories were on patrol for anyone dropping an f-bomb on their monarchs.
Of course, they weren't watching porn while they were doing this.
Beautifully illustrated with firmbuttocked boys and sprawling sirens, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell gives head to the notion that men follow the same principles in their political, religious and sex lives. It thereby fixes a contrast between the man of restraint, who enchains his desires to political and religious convention, and the man of spirit, whose energy overruns legalities like marriage. Where Blake's society saw the man of restraint as acting in accord with the divine and the man of spirit as satanic, Blake reversed these definitions. For Blake, "man has no body distinct from his soul," and he returns to a divine state by following his natural desires. This led him, like Mary Wollstonecraft (the prototypal feminist), to promote free love. Woodstock, here we come!
On the other hand, following the rule of the Christian God (and the head of the Church of England, viz. the monarch), led to corruption and enfeeblement since "those who restrain desire do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained, and being restraind it by degrees becomes passive until it is only the shadow of desire." Blake has two contextual definitions for God, that of a positive creative energy deriving from man, and that of means for social control. Usually the latter holds. God is a bureaucrat who "will torment Man for following his energies." He saw the legalized Christianity of 18th century England as creating "prisons built with stones of law, brothels with bricks of religion." He also saw the hell that seemed to be created by organized religion as unavoidable.
For Blake, all religions begin with the ecstasy of the poet and collapse into systems. The immediacy of the body becomes transcended and forgotten for the ineffable, unfeeling soul. This is the inescapable marriage of Heaven and Hell; a cyclic movement as perdurable as Hegel's thesis and antithesis.
Of course, Blake's motives for this rather complicated philosophical system can be somewhat suspect. His enlightened readings of the Old Testament led him to conclude he should procure a concubine to produce children for his barren marriage, whereupon his wife ran away crying and shut herself in a garret for a week. His issue with restraint and convention apparently also justified his nude tea parties in the garden. "The nakedness of woman is the work of God?" Oh yeah.
Sure to stimulate your head in more than one way, Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell is a great opening for intercourse on religion, sex, and politics. Whether it leads to a rousing theological debate or a romp in the hay, enjoy!
It was this sort of reasoning that enabled William Blake to freely criticize the religion, customs and politics of late 18th century England in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell while avoiding imprisonment. Blake printed his best-known work in 1793, directly after the French Revolution. Remember the security after 9/11? After watching thousands of aristocrats lose their heads over the Revolution (quite literally), the English Tories were on patrol for anyone dropping an f-bomb on their monarchs.
Of course, they weren't watching porn while they were doing this.
Beautifully illustrated with firmbuttocked boys and sprawling sirens, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell gives head to the notion that men follow the same principles in their political, religious and sex lives. It thereby fixes a contrast between the man of restraint, who enchains his desires to political and religious convention, and the man of spirit, whose energy overruns legalities like marriage. Where Blake's society saw the man of restraint as acting in accord with the divine and the man of spirit as satanic, Blake reversed these definitions. For Blake, "man has no body distinct from his soul," and he returns to a divine state by following his natural desires. This led him, like Mary Wollstonecraft (the prototypal feminist), to promote free love. Woodstock, here we come!
On the other hand, following the rule of the Christian God (and the head of the Church of England, viz. the monarch), led to corruption and enfeeblement since "those who restrain desire do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained, and being restraind it by degrees becomes passive until it is only the shadow of desire." Blake has two contextual definitions for God, that of a positive creative energy deriving from man, and that of means for social control. Usually the latter holds. God is a bureaucrat who "will torment Man for following his energies." He saw the legalized Christianity of 18th century England as creating "prisons built with stones of law, brothels with bricks of religion." He also saw the hell that seemed to be created by organized religion as unavoidable.
For Blake, all religions begin with the ecstasy of the poet and collapse into systems. The immediacy of the body becomes transcended and forgotten for the ineffable, unfeeling soul. This is the inescapable marriage of Heaven and Hell; a cyclic movement as perdurable as Hegel's thesis and antithesis.
Of course, Blake's motives for this rather complicated philosophical system can be somewhat suspect. His enlightened readings of the Old Testament led him to conclude he should procure a concubine to produce children for his barren marriage, whereupon his wife ran away crying and shut herself in a garret for a week. His issue with restraint and convention apparently also justified his nude tea parties in the garden. "The nakedness of woman is the work of God?" Oh yeah.
Sure to stimulate your head in more than one way, Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell is a great opening for intercourse on religion, sex, and politics. Whether it leads to a rousing theological debate or a romp in the hay, enjoy!
