…What is less well known than the triumph of Hegel through his Marxist-Sociologist and Positivist brethren is that the brilliant, eccentric “prophetic books” of English poet-philosopher William Blake (1757-1827) predated Hegel by several decades. Blake’s statement of an all-pervasive, universal dialectic is emphatic and precise: ”without contraries there is no progression,” with energy/desire and reason/oppression being the “contraries,” the thesis and antithesis. Moreover, Blake’s dialectic operates on many levels, — individual psychology, social and erotic relationships; national integrity and global harmony via the reconciliation of Albion with his alienated emanation, Jerusalem in a cosmic marriage that also should occur within each person.
thus Blake fully articulates the erotic aspect of politics that dominates the post WW II world, that emerged strikingly in the “cult of sensibility” in the third quarter of the 18th century (the dominion of Rousseau), and that is clear in the feminism and worship of a goddess “humanity” in Marx and Comte. These social programs and theories build on a cultural compost of English feminism (its founding text, by Mary Wollstonecraft, 1792) that traces back ultimately to pagan Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece with their worship of the “Queen of heaven” (cf. Jeremiah’s warning in 44-5). In the Greek version this is a violently transgendered and magical pardigm. All these forces are vigorously and elaborately described and depicted by Blake in the poetic books that he illustrated with androgynous figures in dramatic conflict that have explicit socio-political, theological and relational aspects. Erotic and, as we have learned to say, psychological torment, outburst and consummation figure strikingly in his work that goes beyond Hegel and his followers.
Let’s consider Blake’s statement and illustration of the dialectic in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790).
The title immediately alerts a post-Hegelian and Nietzschean reader to the dialectic and revolutionary purpose, including shocking of the middle class inherent in the work. But Blake will not leave the center of his change-agency to allusion but spells it out in a series of propositions that neither Hegel nor twentieth century sages like Wittgenstein bettered.
“Without Contraries is no progression. Love and Hate are necessary to Human existence.
“From these contraries spring what the religious call Good & Evil.” And now he adds the shock of transvalued terms and synthesis or “marriage” to his dialectic. “Good is the passive that obeys Reason. Evil is the active springing from Energy.
“Good is Heaven. Evil is Hell.” (more…)