Thoughts About William Blake
What exactly was William Blake up to? We learned from his works that he definetly wanted the reader to feel something. He also wanted the reader to experience something that they never had before. What this could be is up to the reader. Blake uses ideas, that in his time and in ours, that are still relavent and associatable. He uses God. The everlasting myth about the creator of all. In a famous work of Blake, The Marrige of Heaven and Hell, we clearly see the relationship of good and bad with God and Satan. God of course being heaven, and Satan being Hell. Does Blake have a purpose here? I am positive at the time he did, but what exactly was it. It can be discussed that he wanted to readers not only to read, understand, and enjoy his work, but to also learn from his work. When I say learn, I mean to state that Blake wanted to teach people to look at things in a differednt way. He wanted them to, as Dr. Thurber, of The University of San Diego, would say, "Think Outside the Box." Blake urged his readers to read his work a certain way. He wanted the Books of Innocents and the Books of Experience to be read together. Why? He wrote them at different times, why should the reader read them together then? ( possible answer here) Blake interwove many meanings into his work. He knew the full potential of his work. He knew what he could do with it.
Proverbs of Hell
What is a Proverb? What is Hell? Blake's writings contained in The Marrige of Heaven and Hell go against all that we know as a society to be true. He completely does the opposite of what it is to compose a proverb, which can be stated is some true statement about something, and the image of Hell, which is always interpreted as being evil, harsh, and rancid. Some of these stuck out to me. I will give my intrepretations of these below.
"Eternity is in love with the productions of time."
This proverb, of Hell, states a very good point. It realtes "Eternity" with the "Productions of time." It can be said that Eternity is ever-lasting. Ever-lasting what? Ever-lasting time, or productions of time. Blake, I feel, realted these two ideas to show what he has been trying to show so often in his work; without one, the other ceases to exist. What would we have if there was no ideas of Hell? Just heaven? No. We would not even be able to distinguish what is Heaven hence rendering it unimaginable. But this proverb is from Hell. Hell is the lair of the Devil. Whatever the Devil says is false. Not in Blake's world.
"He who has suffer'd you to impose on him, knows him."
This is a complicated proverb to decipher. Many meanings have I come across with this one I have. I feel that Blake is stating that i fsomeone wants to impose on another, the person doing the imposing will have knowledge of the person he/she is doing the imposing on. Basically, Blake says that you know the person you are bugging. If you knew the person to be kind and willing, then most assuredly the imposer would be welcome. If the person was withdrawn and known to be not so pleasant, the trouble of imposing would not even be attempted. I do not know how this fits into Blake's scheme. Possibly I am completely wrong with my interpretation of this one. Possibly I am completely correct. What does Blake have in-store for the rest of the story/poem?
