Confusion, Religion, and Poetry: William Blake

William Blake proposes a new definition for a poet: speaking of Milton, he estimates that "'[t]he reason Milton wrote in fetters when / he wrote of Angels & God, and at liberty when of / Devils & Hell . . . is because he was a true Poet and / of the Devils party without knowing it" (75). Blake, a poet himself and a man careful with words, chose "true Poet" intentionally; he intends the word to describe not only Milton but many before him and many after him, including himself. To be poet, then, is to feel the attraction toward "the Devils party." 

            Given his "All Religions Are One," then, in which he claims that "The Religions of all Nat-/-ions are derived from each/ Nations different reception/ of the Poetic Genius," by which he means the poetic soul inherent in every man (77). Men created religion, and different men created different religions. If every man possesses within himself a true poet, and every true poet is concerned more with hell than heaven, it is no small wonder that the cultures and religions of the world spend far more time imagining and fearing their negative afterlife than their positive. In the same way that Hell provided a far more colorful backdrop for Milton's Paradise Lost than Heaven with its boring angels, hell enters into our imaginations, our literature, our television programming, and our swear word vocabulary. Far more people come to Christianity out of paralyzing fear of Hell than of rapturous joy at the prospect of Heaven. 

            Perhaps to be a poet is also to be contradictory about one's ideas of heaven and of hell. In "The Little Black Boy," found in Songs of Innocence and of Experience," Blake writes from the perspective of this little black boy: "I am black, but O! my soul is white . . . But I am black as if bereav'd of light" (80, line 2, 4). While little white boys are "White as an angel," (80, line 3), this boy is black: black as devils, black as evil, black as hell, black as a place with no light, say the implied comparisons. In fact, the little black boy is black--"sun-burnt," describes his mother (80, line 15) because of excess light, not lack of it. Our purpose on the earth, the boy's mother goes on to say, is for "our souls [to learn] the heat [of God] to bear" (81, line 17). In that case, the black boy--the boy described as looking like hell itself because of his blackness--is more able to bear heat, and therefore closer to God's will. 

            At the poem's end, Blake writes that the black boy and the white boy will both rejoice around God's tent once they are able. At that time, 

  Ill shade him from the heat till he can bear, 

  To lean in joy upon our fathers knee

  And then Ill stand and stroke his silver hair, 

  And be like him and he will then love me. (81, 25-29)

The mention of "silver hair" sounds like an image that would be associated with God, but Blake seems to be still speaking of the "little English boy," the white boy that he has always longed to be. The little black boy will "be like him" somehow, and then he can be loved by this boy, who bears the properties of God and the angels themselves. It is unclear whether the white boy and the black boy both change to be something new and like each other, or whether Blake imagines the black boy changing and the white boy staying as he was: "White as an angel," as he was from the beginning (80, line 3). 

            This confusion is mirrored in the color plates that Blake illustrated for this poem. The plate depicts Christ, holding a praying white boy in his arms, while the black boy stands behind, his hand on the shoulder of the English boy (color plates 6 and 7). In some versions, the black boy and white boy are still different colors, and in some they are both the same shadowy grey color. So whether the black boy means a physical change when he insists that he will be like the white boy or merely a spiritual change is not even concluded by a graphic representation of their relationship. One thing is clear: the black boy ends the poem speaking of the white boy, saying that "he will then love me," (line 28), but in the plate, the white boy does not seem to be paying him any attention at all, let alone loving him. Clearly, Blake does not intend a clear-cut description of the black boy, the white boy, God, or their situation as a whole. This ambiguity is characteristic of Blake's writing in general: he asks more questions than he answers, and he pours great meaning into symbols that he subsequently casts doubt upon.