Hell’s Proverbs: Blake’s cheeky aphorisms in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Nietzsche’s distinction between the order and harmony of Apollo and the unrestrained Dionysian drive for chaos, instinct, and irrationality, has developed into a framework of interpreting the Christian canon. In short, the Apollonian harmony attempts to contain the chaotic Dionysian impulse through rationalization and order; it gives meaning to what previously had none. In the same vein, Hell itself is a paradoxical consequence of opposites and contraries. Evil is the absence of goodness; therefore, the spirit of Hell is one of negation. Since God created the world out of love, and evil is the absence of divine love, then the infernal abyss lacks a physical dimension. If the aforementioned is true, then Hell proper does not and should not exist. Yet somehow Hell contains and punishes those who rebel against Him! The word “hell” in German translates to “bright” and “Lucifer’s name also derives from “light-bearer.” Although Hell is a place for those deprived of God’s luminance and grace, it is simultaneously a space that illuminates the sins of its inhabitants. Dante’s use of contrapasso—the principle of retribution that enacts and parodies the sin—in addressing those within Hell to reveal their transgression and at times comedic punishments, reinforces the potential revelatory nature of Hell.

In The Marriage, Blake visits Hell through a series of memorable fancies and “collected some of their Proverbs.” He also says that humanity “[marks] its character” with “the nature of Infernal wisdom.” The unification of paradoxical opposites in the Proverbs of Hell—which act as both instructors of negation, the “do not,” and instructor of affirmation, the “do”—parallel Dionysian systematization, which lacks integrity, uniformity, and stability. Blake’s Proverbs challenge the conventional wisdom of the angels and denies the authority of the Aristotle’s law of non-contradiction. In contrast to the seemly righteous angels and Apollonians that rely on and limit themselves to moral and divine authority—existing in what Kant calls “self-imposed ignorance”—Blakean devils are active interlocutors with their own reason: “If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.” The Marriage calls on humanity to take a step toward its innate reason, reminding us to “expect poison from the standing water.” It asks the people to accept radical opposites, trust little, and “Damn braces; bless relaxes.”