The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

A infernal masterpiece of philosophy and poetry, written in the fire of the French Revolution. Blake visits Hell and returns with a scandalous proposition: that the moral order is a lie, that energy and desire labeled 'evil' are actually the divine fire of human experience, and that Satan, not God, may be the true liberator of humanity. The work is Blake's polemical riposte to Swedenborg's Heaven and Hell, a deliberate depolarization that argues opposites are not in conflict but in necessary marriage. Scattered throughout are the 'Proverbs of Hell,' seventy incendiary aphorisms that have been quoted by rebels, poets, and revolutionaries for over two centuries: 'The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom,' 'Prudence is a rich, ugly old maid courted by Incapacity,' 'The tyger burns bright.' Blake claims John Milton was 'of the Devil's party without knowing it' and that Milton's Satan is the true Messiah. Part prose manifesto, part visionary poem, part illustrated book of wonder, this is a work that refuses to let the reader remain comfortable in their certainties.