The Poet 197
appalls” (27). But Blake also believes that within the old coffi n of
religious dogma lies the prospect of resurrection— not resurrection
after death, but rebirth, here and now. Much of Blake’s poetry seeks
to contribute to that resurrection. Religion in Blake (and in Tom’s
dream) is potent: it contains delusions, but it contains motives for
liberation, too.
In his early work, Blake is an anatomist of oppression. He fi nds
the places where society reveals itself for the corrupt operation it is.
He looks at the way children are raised, how and why soldiers fi ght,
and at the state of erotic love. He’s also interested in patterns of so-
cial indoctrination. “The Chimney Sweeper” is an allegory about
how conventional interpreters hide what is most liberating about the
Gospels and substitute oppressive dogmas. In “The Lamb” Blake
shows how a child is indoctrinated with a vapid, dangerously inno-
cent view of who Jesus was and what he did. In “The Tyger,” Blake
impersonates a hysterical (and gifted) poet who uses his prodigious
imagination to scare himself and make himself timidly ineff ectual,
rather than a smasher of mental chains. In “The Little Black Boy,”
Blake shows how a child becomes the object of subtle self- disgust
for the crime of being born dark- skinned.
But for Blake it is not enough to describe and evoke the mind-
forged manacles. One must also break through them and liberate
oneself into something akin to the world that little Tom Dacre
glimpsed. How does one do so? When you know who your adver-
sary is, and where he is strong, what you need to do next is rally your
forces, which is what Blake does in his best- known poem, “The
Marriage of Heaven and Hell.”
“The Marriage” is an extremist poem. It is the work of an indi-
vidual who feels completely beleaguered: everywhere he looks there
is opposition to what he k nows is right. The men society calls poets
are in love with the status quo, as are the priests and, unsurprisingly,
the politicians. So where is one to fi nd allies? Blake’s answer is