In the Caves of Heaven and Hell: Swedenborg and Printmaking in Blake’s Marriage

Abstract

The present essay is the third of three on the evolution of William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (Viscomi 1997, 1998). The first argues that the Marriage evolved through 4–6 distinct printmaking sessions in the following plate order: 21–4; 12–13; 1–3, 5–6, 11, 6–10; 14–15, ?4; 16–20; and 25–7. From the chronology of plate production, we can infer that Blake began the Marriage without a completed manuscript, a hypothesis supported by the technical exigencies of illuminated printing. We can also infer that the Marriage’s disjointed structure resulted at least in part from its production history. While literary models, such as Menippean satire or the Higher Criticism’s theory that the Old Testament was a gathering of redacted fragments, may also have influenced the structure, they appear to have come into play only after plates 21–4 were written and executed. These four plates constitute an autonomous text expressing almost exclusively Blake’s criticism of Emanuel Swedenborg. The text’s autonomy and the fact that its four plates were quarters cut from the same sheet of copper (the first of seven sheets eventually cut) support the hypothesis that it was written as an independent, anti-Swedenborgian pamphlet, as does the fact that plates 21–4 were first printed in black ink on a conjoined sheet of paper folded in half.¹

It was granted me to see from beginning to end how the last judgment was accomplished; and also how the Babylon was destroyed (Rev. 18), how those who are understood by the dragon were cast into the abyss; and how the new heaven was formed; and a new church was instituted in the heavens, which is meant by the New Jerusalem. It was granted me to see all these things with my own eyes, in order that I might be able to testify to them. This last judgment was commenced in the beginning of the year 1757, and was fully accomplished at the end of that year.)

Emanuel Swedenborg, A Treatise Concerning the Last Judgment and the Destruction of Babylon (1758; English translation, 1788)

As a new heaven is begun, and it is now thirty-three years since its advent: the Eternal Hell revives. And lo! Swedenborg is the Angel sitting at the tomb; his writings are the linen clothes folded up.

William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790)