Blog post #1- Who is Rintrah?

I have just finished reading through William Blake’s poem “The Argument”; it is the first poem in his series, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.  Blake’s poems are not always easy to understand, I had to re-read several lines to grasp what Blake tried to convey.  I think I finally understand Blake’s argument.  While reading “The Argument” I was stumped after reading the first line “Rintrah roars & shakes his fires in the burden'd air;” because I realized that I did not know what a “Rintrah” was.  I then began to do some research to find out “Rintrah” is a main character in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, a major writing of William Blake in late 1790.  Rintrah is mentioned 48 times throughout Blake’s poetry first in MHH, then in Europe, the Four Zoas, Milton, and Jerusalem.  Rintrah is not the first character that Blake created through his poetry.  Blake created a family to Rintrah and they all seem to represent something different.  Rintrah is known to represent wrath, brother of Palamabron who resembles pity, Bromion who resembles scientific thought and Theotormon who represents desire/ jealousy.   Bromion and Theotormon are sons of Los, also known as the sons of Jerusalem.  Wrath is a central facet of Blake's theology; Wrath means to him something very different from the common connotation. We see Wrath as an intense anger but to Blake Wrath is motivated by anger in seeing injustice.  Now that I have a better understanding to the underlines of what Rintrah is and represents, I a looked back at the original poem, which stumped me; “Rintrah roars and shakes his fires in the burden'd air;”  I think Blake tried to get me to understand Rintrah sits in the sky looking down on the world.  I use the word “sky” because Blake mentions clouds and air, which leads me to the assumption that he is in the sky.  Rintrah is angered in seeing all of the injustice going on in the world below him.  That anger creates Rintrah’s wrath, which would cause him to unleash thundering, roars that shake the air around him.  Through my posts I will look further and further into the meaning behind Rintrah and the writing and illustrations from William Blake.