While reading The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, I found myself drawn to the connections between Blake and Plato. At several points, Blake seems to directly contradict Plato, but at other times he seems to build on Plato's arguments, especially those concerning the nature of truth. The image on Plate 5 appears to illustrate Plato's concept of the soul as a team of horses, virtue and desire, driven by the charioteer, Reason. Blake's drawing shows a man who has lost control of a horse, and both man and horse, turned upside down, appear to be falling toward Hell. Meanwhile, darkness appears to be descending from the upper right-hand corner. Below this, Blake writes, “Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained; and the restrainer or Reason usurps its place & governs the unwilling.” Blake believes, like Plato, that Reason controls desire as a charioteer manages a horse. However, Blake believes that this only occurs when the desires are weak, and he advocates casting out Reason, overturning the chariot as in the illustration, and descending toward Hell, and its Eternal Delights. However, if this Plate is an allusion to Plato, then why is there only one horse? It is reasonable that the white horse of virtue would fall, without the control of the charioteer. However, if the Plate were a direct representation of Plato's theory, and Blake meant to show Reason losing control of desire, the charioteer would have lost control of the dark horse, not the white horse. Is the dark horse represented in the menacing blackness in the upper right-hand corner? Or do the man and the horse represent different concepts here than in the Phaedrus?
Blake also seems to echo Plato when he discusses truth. Plato claims that to be successful at persuasion, one must know the truth about what one is persuading. To believe something is to be persuaded of it. On Plate 10, Blake states, “Truth can never be told so as to be understood and not believed.” This means that if truth is properly presented, then it will be believed. When this is taken in conjunction with Plato's view, it forms the following logical argument: if one is to be successful in persuading another, one must use the truth, and if one uses the truth properly, one will succeed in persuasion. Blake also asserts that “Everything possible to be believed is an image of the truth” (Plate 8). This seems similar to Plato's theory that perceptions, things that humans can believe in on the earth, can remind a person of truth. While it appears implausible that all things that can be believed can represent the truth, the use of the word “image” indicates that they are not necessarily true; images can be misleading. Here, is Blake echoing Berkeley, who believes that truth was subjective? Or does Blake agree with Plato that “images of the truth” can be misleading, and that although they might be helpful in finding truth, they will only be helpful if properly used and interpreted?
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ReplyDeleteI think you raise an interesting point about the allusion to the charioteer and the horses of Phaedrus. My interpretation is that since the charioteer and the white horse represent reason and restraint they are the ones that need to be exposed to hell. Since the horse of desire is inherently what Blake is a proponent of, it does not necessarily need to experience hell and its eternal delights.
ReplyDeleteIt also appeared to me as if Blake coincided with Plato on the nature of truth, at least on the fact that truth can always persuade. However, when Blake states "Everything possible to be believed is an image of truth," I believe he deviates from Plato. I think that he is stating that although pure truth is inaccessible images are definitely an acceptable mode that we should seek them through. For this reason, his work consists of words and images. Obviously, this is in direct contrast of Plato's belief in just words. However, I do agree with your statement that Blake believes in our incomplete and incorrect perception of images. He states "If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite."
I think Blake allusion to Plato is rather clear (good catch by the way), especially with his use of "restraint" and "passive." At the end of the plate and beginning of the next, Blake writes "It indeed appeared to Reason as if Desire was cast out, but the Devils account is that the Messiah fell & formed a heaven of what he stole from the Abyss." The dark horse is not present because those of the Enlightenment believe it to be gone, but Blake's irony is that the man and good horse are still falling with the dark horse an invisible force. If you flip the image upside down, you can sort of imagine the man reaching towards the heaven formed out of the Abyss.
ReplyDeleteConcerning the point about the white horse, I agree with Edgar’s remarks. It does seem that Blake tries to convey, through this image, the fact that our reason should be influenced by our desires; that we should let our irrationality guide us through this theme of eternal delight. This seems to suggest that Blake argues that the Enlightenment ideals about reason forgot the origins of the intellectual vivacity that arises with desire. The combination of reason and desire that Blake highlights is perfectly seen by the white horse, which represents reason falling into hell, or to the unrepressed desires. Moreover, according to Prof. Daub the addition of images to Blake’s work rather than pure words, makes it feasible for him to confound the reader. Thus, I believe, Blake does not provide a didactic speech of his paradoxical truths throughout the book.
ReplyDeleteI think Caroline's analysis is very interesting when it comes to actually comparing Blake to Plato. The charioteer loses control of the white horse not the black horse because Blake views the black horse as "Good" and the white horse as "Bad". Today in the lecture, the professor highlightes that Blake sees "Hell" as the good place, Blake goes for wickidness, Hell, desire, and Evil. If you look closely at his plates, most of them have the drawing of Hell, and we also notice in the cover that the drawing of "Hell" takes a larger scalar than the drawing of "Heaven".
ReplyDeleteI believe from all that the plate 5 opposes Plato's thoughts and concepts.
With the image of the horse and charioteer heading toward the Abyss, perhaps Blake is suggesting that our sense of reason, represented by the white horse and charioteer, muse be exposed to the desires and energies of hell so that we may make an informed choice. This goes back to Blake’s notion that not all desire is bad and that desire sometimes helps us to make the best choices. Reason, shown throughout the work as heaven, and desire, shown throughout the work as hell, combine within us as our charioteer and horse are exposed to the energies of hell.
ReplyDeleteYour allusion to Plato is really interesting, Caroline. My interpretation, however, differs from yours in a couple of central aspects. As wordnimage mentions, there is only one horse due to the mentality of the Enlightenment. Although it would be obvious to compare that to Plato's two horses and the charioteer, I don't think that is the most useful way to read the image. Instead, I think we should pay attention to the placement of the objects in the plate. The man and the horse are suspended in mid-air, and at a first glance it looks as though they are falling towards hell. They could, however, also be dragged towards the upper-left corner (note that both the man and the horse's leg point in the same direction). Where they are heading turns out to be less interesting. Rather, Blake places emphasis on the importance of duality. Our actions do not either place us in heaven or hell. Instead, they follow either one or the other path (reason vs desire), and that duality is what makes us human.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I would see this as necessarily an allusion to Plato's two horses and charioteer, but I think it does provide an interesting comparison. Plato definitely says we should restrain the bad horse, and listen only to reason. At first Blake seems to completely contradict this, but we must remember that this isn't the case. Blake advocates adherence to both reason and desire. Sometimes it seems like he's saying we should completely overturn reason because he says we shouldn't listen only to it. However, he really thinks previous ideas of reason just aren't complete. Desire is also a necessary component, and shouldn't be restrained.
ReplyDeleteI find your second point very intriguing, Caroline, especially the quote, "Everything possible to be believed is an image of truth" (Plate 8). I agree that Blake's use of the word "image" implies a certain degree of subjectivity. An image, after all, is never exactly the same as what it depicts - mirror images are reversed, drawn images are influenced by the artist's techniques, photographs cannot capture more than a fleeting moment. Describing human beliefs as "images of truth" inserts a fundamental doubt as to how close to the real truth they can ever be. However, I do not believe that Blake agrees with Plato and means to say that our beliefs are purposefully misleading and can only lead us to truth when carefully interpreted. Rather, as Prof. Daub mentioned today in lecture, Blake is optimistic about our ability to understand. Though we may only see partial "images of the truth" now, it is possible for us to "cleanse our doors of perception." We just have to take that responsibility upon ourselves.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting that Blake uses a similar image to Plato's image of the charioteer and the two horses. I think he may have been referencing Plato's image, and made intentional changes to it to show the difference between his and Plato's beliefs. Blake omitted the black horse, which to Plato was the evil representation of desire. Blake does not believe that desire is bad. In fact, he believes it is necessary. So it would follow that there would be no black horse, only a white horse. That white horse could represent desire and shame and honor all at once. Also, the positioning of the charioteer and the white horse seems to imply they are in a kind of limbo. Blake makes it so the charioteer does not have control over the white horse. Instead, they are facing each other as equals, but also as enemies. This implies that Blake believes desire and reason are equally important but in opposition at the same time.
ReplyDeleteCaroline has made a fascinating comparison between the image of the charioteer and horse in Plato's Phaedrus and in Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. One might say it is a total coincidence that this image comes up in both works, but part of me wants to believe that Blake had Plato's metaphor in mind while writing and choosing his images. If this is the case, I believe that the darkness as well as the engulfing flames at the bottom represent the evil of hell. The charioteer and the white, pure, reasonable horse fall helplessly into the depths of desire, demonstrating that submitting to "evil" is inevitable. This shows how Blake differs from Plato in that he believes that reason and restraint are never sufficient to subdue desire, and one does not necessarily have to do so. Desire can be beneficial and educational.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Caroline's second question, I think Blake is not clear about whether he believes that truth is subjective or that a higher truth exists, but is just incredibly difficult to reach. By saying that "Every thing possible to believ'd is an image of truth," he adopts both views by saying that on earth, the truth is inaccessible, but he does not necessarily exclude the possibility that an absolute truth exists.
I don't think that Blake agrees with Plato that reason should restrain desire, or even that it does in most cases--I think he argues that the only people who can actually restrain desire with reason are those who aren't strong enough to exercise desire. Blake continues to argue that Hell is reigned over by Satan, whose children are sin and death, but we can gain an interesting insight from that based on mortality--if Blake was trying to argue that reason should restrain desire, and that desire is represented by Hell, can we restrain sin and death? The latter would be a flat "no" since we are all mortal beings; and the former is probably "no" based on human nature. From that I feel that Blake argues more toward balancing control between one's desires and one's logic/reasoning, not restraining one outright to the other.
ReplyDeleteLooking at the image on the plate, then, we notice there is a single horse. If this is an allusion to Plato, given Blake's romantic views, this makes sense--it isn't that there are two horses representing each extreme, but rather that we ride on one single horse that must metaphorically straddle between both Heaven and Hell--between reason and chaos/desire.
I am hesitant to believe the dark mass is the representation of the dark horse. I do believe that Plato and Blake are representations of eachother's theories and this one picture can not be the evidence against it. We do not know which horse the one appearing is, it could be the good or evil horse. What we must do is try and not let this image mislead us, there is clearly a charioteer and a horse, good or bad, this shows the direct correlation with Plato and Blake, concerning heaven and hell.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that Blake is more in agreement with Berkeley than with Plato about the nature of the truth. His comment that "every thing possible to be believ'd is an image of truth" seems to be almost a direct parroting of Berkeley's position. However, it is important to note that this statement is one of the 'proverbs of hell,' a section whose name makes it difficult to fully accept all the statements at face value. However, Blake doesn't seem to view Hell in general as a negative, which leads the reader to accept the proverbs of hell as valid, and the title merely an ironic contradiction of the generally negative connotations traditionally associated with Hell.
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