William Blakes Proverbs Of Hell

William Blake's "Proverbs of Hell" is here presented, for the first time, as its own stand-alone work. Blake's "Proverbs of Hell" first appeared in England in 1794, a key piece in Blake's larger The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Since its publication, Blake's "Proverbs" has attained a life of its own, simultaneously fascinating, unsettling, and intriguing scholars, writers, occultists, theologians, and philosophers alike. Blake claimed that the Satanic insights contained in his "Proverbs of Hell" were taken from his meetings with demons "while walking among the fires of Hell." Ikonograph Press is proud to present here, for the first time, William Blake's "Proverbs of Hell" as its own individual work. Blake's infernal wisdom formed a key part of the Dark Romanticist and Gothic literary movements of the 1800s; and The Proverbs of Hell also served to inspire later figures such as Aleister Crowley, Aldous Huxley, and Allen Ginsberg and the other Beat Poets. More recently, Blake's Proverbs have inspired figures in pop culture, from The Doors, to Thomas Harris' Silence of the Lambs novels and movies, to Marilyn Manson. In the appendices to this edition, modern Gothic poet Oliver Sheppard (Thirteen Nocturnes), who has edited this volume, has also assembled selections from Emanuel Swedenborg's Heaven and Hell, Johann Lavater's Aphorisms of Man-both key influences on Blake-and proverbs from Blake's later works that serve to place The Proverbs of Hell in its proper literary context. "Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion." - from William Blake's Proverbs of Hell "There was no doubt that William Blake was mad. But there is something in the madness of this man which interests me more than the sanity of Lord Byron and Walter Scott." - William Wordsworth

All 70 of William Blake's Proverbs of Hell, each accompanied by a photograph chosen to extend and enhance the impact of the proverb.

The text of each poem is given in letterpress on the page facing the beautiful color reproductions of the plate. The book is printed on vellum.

"The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" is a collection of sketches touching on the subject of Good versus Evil and examining the biblical idea of "Hell" the place of eternal suffering for those who reject God. Author and poet William Blake seems to repudiate the idea of such a place and seeks to show that in fact Hell is a place of freedom for as he puts it, "The ancient tradition that the world will be consumed in fire at the end of six thousand years is true, as I have heard from Hell. For the cherub with his flaming sword is hereby commanded to leave his guard at [the] tree of life, and when he does, the whole creation will be consumed and appear infinite and holy, whereas it now appears finite and corrupt. This will come to pass by an improvement of sensual enjoyment."

Thesis (M.A.) from the year 2006 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0, University of Hannover (Englisches Seminar), language: English, abstract: The present thesis deals with The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, one of William Blake's prophetic books. These are a series of texts, which were written in imitation of biblical books of prophecy, but expressing the poet's own personal romantic and revolutionary beliefs. It is not exactly known when the work was written. One assumes it was composed in London between 1790 and 1793, a period of political conflict arising immediately after the French Revolution. S. Foster Damon argues that the American and French Revolution had an immense influence on Blake writing the Marriage: The American and French Revolutions promised a better world; and stirred Blake to a new enthusiasm, from which he deduced the theory that apparent Evil, such as War, is only Energy working against established order. This was a new perception of Truth; all his problems seemed solved by it; and he hailed the light triumphantly in another book, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1793) Apart from the opening Argument and the Song of Liberty, the entire book is written in prose. The book is about the first person narrator's visit to Hell, a concept taken by Blake from Dante's Inferno and Milton's Paradise Lost. Like many other of Blake's works, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell was influenced by the mysticism of Swedish theosophist Emanuel Swedenborg. Moreover, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is also in part a satire on Emanuel Swedenborg's writings, especially on Heaven and Hell from which Blake adapted the title, and on the New Jerusalem Church which was set up by Swedenborg's British followers.

Features 104 of Blake's poems: "A Song of Liberty," "The Argument," "Proverbs of Hell," "The Mental Traveller," "The Land of Dreams," "To the Evening Star" and many more.