Things I learned in 16th Century British Literature: lesson 3

“All We Saw was Your metaphysics” Blake and the “Marriage of Heaven and Hell”

From my Class Notes:
Blake licenses everyone to be a prophet. Prophecy is not dead. Generic incommensurability.
Juxtaposes philosophical with proverbs etc, and by doing so leaves huge interpretative gap.
People will expropriate properties of personifications and use it to enslave others. Blake says no.
We are makers. Genius. We make personifications. This book is a toolkit.
Power of imagery demonstrated in nation-making.
“as the eye so the object”
“all that we saw was owing to your metaphysics”
For Blake imagery is judgment. Makes the ability of the poetic genius. “The hunger of imagination which preys incessantly upon life”
Insanity cured by conversation

What I learned:
As a poet you can create your own metaphors, which is most all what any-one has when it comes to explaining the inexplicable. Basically, don’t let politics of control use fear borne of someone else’s dogma control you. Supersede that.

Also. A folk song may save you from the fear of superstition in the darkness of a drunken walk home from the pub.