Blog Post #3- Bibles and Blake.

I have just finished reading “Song of Liberty”, the ninth poem in William Blake’s, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.  I believe this poem mirrors the Bible (and particularly the Book of Revelation) in terms of body structure and language; “A Song of Liberty” can be instantly recognizable to the tone of the Bible.  Blake uses a massive amount of biblical language throughout the poem to give his argument of the prominence towards the scripture.   He uses complex writings and vivid descriptions to bring out his vision.  The imagery of fire throughout the poem represents the marriage of Heaven and Hell in coming together to free the world from autocracy.  The use of this fire imagery is interesting because fire is most often associated with Hell but Blake uses it in an opposite way to describe heaven.  Often Blake will use the opposite of what people are used too reading to grasp our attention. Blake describes, “fiery limbs, the flaming hair, shot like the sinking sun into the... sea,” and “the fire, the fire, is falling!,” which implies falling from heaven. Blake used word like “Eternal Female”  and “groaned” in childbirth.  Blake begins the “Song of Liberty” using imagery of a birth, possibly in order to bring a mental picture of conception and the birth of Jesus.  In the Bible version, a woman named Mary who bears the child of God but in Blake’s poem it is an “eternal female” who is giving birth to a child.  Blake reverses the Bible story could suggest that Blake is describing the birth of the antichrist, the opposite to Jesus.  However, as with every element of his “Marriage of Heaven and Hell”, Blake represents his antichrist not simply as a creature of evil, but as an agent of freedom and imagination.  The importance of a child’s birth in this poem connects “ Songs of Innocence” to the Bible.  Another point connecting the two are in lines 3-5, Blake implores France to “rend thy dungeon” and “Golden Spain” to cast off the rule of the Roman Catholic Church.  Blake is telling Rome to throw away the keys of St. Peter.