Marriage of Heaven and Hell

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is a poetic work by William Blake, composed between 1790 and 1793 during the period of radical political conflict following the French Revolution. The title ironically references Emanuel Swedenborg's theological work Heaven and Hell, and Blake critiques Swedenborg's conventional moral structures. The book presents a unified vision of the cosmos where the material world and physical desire are part of the divine order, hence a marriage of heaven and hell. Written in prose except for the opening 'Argument' and the 'Song of Liberty', it describes the poet's visit to Hell, drawing from Dante's Inferno and Milton's Paradise Lost.