Contraries
Posted by admin on October 17, 2008, 5:01 pm
Using evidence from the Marriage of Heaven and Hell, discuss the meaning of “Without Contraries is no progression.”
2 Responses to “Contraries”
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October 30th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Blake must address contraries in Heaven and Hell because what he is arguing is the very notion that humans are comprised of forces that simultaneously resist, and contradict each other. If Blake intends to take the reader beyond the infallibility of an external divine presence, if he instead wants to expose the potency of human creation and expression, then he must identify the enforced disparity of contradictions which become manifests in subjugation and shame. Blake exposes the artifice that presupposes that actions and behaviors can be so easily distinguished and categorized under an ethical guise. He insists that we must contemplate our ability to retain the true dictates of morality. Morality has simply been an extension of an all encompassing, unquestionable God, whose righteousness is unreachable in its perfection; whereas it is the very limitations of humanity that provide this supplemental fantasy of ascension. Blake believes that people have misappropriated their desires to achieve a more progressive existence by depending upon metaphysics, instead he will go into Hell, a space of reality, of the bodily threats to divinity, in order to reclaim human’s right to desire resolution in freedom.
The voice of the devil becomes a list of the tenets of reality that contradict the presumptions of Heaven as it has always been known, all of which displays the underlying tensions of human existence that can no longer be repressed for the sake of preserving the justness of an inaccessible, and unreal God. I would like to briefly follow the logic of one of the Devil’s arguments, namely that, “Energy is Eternal Delight” (Plate 4) and “That Energy, call’d Evil, is alone from the Body, & that Reason, call’d Good, is alone from the Soul” (Plate 4). The underpinning of human consciousness, as has been constantly critiqued by psychoanalysis, is the inclination toward unadulterated, annihilating pleasure, however this joy can only be contextualized in the scope of moral purpose, which in some ways contradicts, and then regulates, human impulse. Blake’s premises utilize hyperbole to suggest the absurdity that humans should be expected to fulfill absolute morality through the repression of desire, or the body, in order to purify the soul, which has been misconstrued as God’s purpose. Blake demonstrates that contradictions when they have the opportunity to come to fruition will reveal a humanity that will no longer confine themselves to ultimatums of stark morality, instead a humanity emerges that possesses contradictions simultaneously, and is then empowered by this revelation.
December 11th, 2008 at 12:33 am
Although I think I agree with Mightremindyou’s conclusion, and certainly with the last statement about humanity encompassing contradiction and there’s the “juice,” I think I disagree with, or at least don’t understand some of the arguments posed in getting to that point. Anyway, since I am writing about it elsewhere, I do feel compelled to clarify one thing. In the text of the fourth plate, “The Voice of the Devil,” “Energy is Eternal Delight” is an accurate representation of the “devil’s opinion, but the quote “That Energy, call’d Evil, is alone . . . etc,” is under the listing of what the “devil” is claiming as in error and contrary to the Truth.