SOURCE: "An Audience for The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,'' in Blake Studies, Vol. 3, No. 1, Fall, 1970, pp. 19-51.

In this essay Howard claims that The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is not addressed to the orthodox in general, but rather very specifically to the members of the New Jerusalem Church and the Joseph Johnson circle.

I Introduction

Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell pleases critics for its "blistering ridicule of the wisdom that dwells with prudence, with its rowdy guffaws at the doctrines of torturing hell and a boring heaven,"¹ and it has been shown by scholars that the Marriage directs much of that ridicule at Emmanuel Swedenborg.² But as one reads the Marriage, no doubt wondering how Blake could have wasted all his ridicule on a man long passed away, one yearns to know if the blistering satire raised welts on any living man. And...