‘By a False Wife Brought to the Gates of Death’: Blake, Politics and Transgendered Performances

Abstract

During the narrator’s infernal tour in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, he sees a striking proverb: ‘Let man wear the fell of the lion. Woman the fleece of the sheep’ (8:30, E36). At face value this is a bold assertion of male hetero- sexuality; in Burkean terms, the power of the sublime dominates the meek and yielding sheep. But the devil is in the detail. The verb ‘wear’ empha- sizes a performative dimension to gendered identity, whilst the ambiguous imperative is deeply suggestive, gesturing towards an authoritarian scripting of gender roles, the granting of a freedom of assent to them, and the passiv- ity involved in accepting conventional behaviours. The proverb slyly hints at fluid, dynamic identities and desires beyond the stark binaries of the lion and sheep.