Introduction
The theme of past as such that actively influences people’s present has traditionally been the recurrent motif in European romanticist literature and poetry, throughout the course of the 19th century. European intellectuals, associated with the Romanticist movement, believed that relying on materialistic rationale alone, within a context of individual pursuing its destiny, can hardly be beneficial for such individual, simply because people are not just physical but also spiritual/emotional beings. This is why Romanticists refused to adopt a purely materialistic outlook on one’s individuality while implying that every person was something so much more than simply a bulk of organic matter, ruled by the set of animalistic instincts.
In its turn, this would often prompt them to resort to the utilization of sin vs. virtue motif, prominently featured in European literature of earlier centuries – unlike intellectuals that promoted the ideals of Enlightenment, Romanticists did not think of people as being only driven by rationale-based urges, which is why they continuously strived to reveal hidden forces behind one’s destiny. In this paper, we will aim at exploring this thesis even further, while resorting to the analysis of William Blake’s “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” and Samuel Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” as literary works that reinterpret themes contained in John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” from Romanticist perspective.
William Blake
In his article “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: Blake’s Myth of Satan and Its Cultural Matrix”, Peter A. Schock was able to point out at conceptual difference between Classical and Romanticist interpretations of figure of Satan: “English writers in the Romantic era develop Satan into an ideological symbol with a broad range of functions: expressing rebellious ort unconventional political, moral, and religious values, and producing correspondent literary effects, such as irony and satire” (1993, 441).
In its turn, this explains why, despite the plot of Blake’s book revolving around essentially Miltonic motifs, “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” provides readers with a Gnostic insight into the relationship between good and evil. As we are all aware, in his poem “Paradise Lost”, Milton discussed the concept of sin as such that originated out of Satan’s conscious unwillingness to subject himself to God. In “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell”, Blake had also embarked upon revealing the actual roots of metaphysical evil.
However, unlike Milton, he thought of these roots as residing deep in people’s subconsciousness, which is why in Blake’s interpretation, people’s ability to commit sins reflected their ability to act as facilitators of cultural progress – according to Blake, the concept of “sin” is being synonymous to the concept of “non-conformity”. Since people’s behavior is being defined by particulars of their biological makeup, it makes absolutely no sense to talk about one’s soul as a “thing in itself”: “Man has no Body distinct from his Soul; for that call’d Body is a portion of Soul discerned by the five Senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age” (1790, Plate 4).
Therefore, despite the highly allegorical sounding of this particular Blake’s work, “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” can be best referred to as such that contains a contemporary insight onto the true essence of one’s individuality because it was named during the course of 20th century that psychologists had come to recognize the physiological nature of people’s anxieties.
Unlike Milton, Blake thought of the concept of sin as being concerned with people’s willingness to defy their natural instincts, rather than with their willingness to sell their souls to Devil. In its turn, this has led Blake to realize Devil is actually the best friend of the Church because Church’s opposing stance towards people’s subconscious strive to explore their individuality can be discussed along the lines of the Devil’s intention to bring as much misery into this world as possible: “Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion” (1790, Plate 8).
It appears that Blake had a different perspective on the notion of divine law and order, as compared to that of Milton’s. Whereas; Milton believed that people’s inability to attain happiness comes as the result of their unwillingness to follow Biblical commandments, Blake’s “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” suggests something entirely opposite – it is namely because people resist exploring their passions, in order to prove their piousness to themselves, which accounts for the existential inadequateness, on their part: “The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction. Expect poison from the standing water” (1790, Plate 9).
Apparently, Blake was well aware of the fact that the concept of “divine order”, as something perpetually unchangeable, is being synonymous with the concept of energetic death, which is why true divinity cannot possibly be associated with meekness, docility, and narrow-mindedness (the psychological traits of “true” Christians): “The Giants who formed this world into its sensual existence and now seem to live in it in chains, is in truth, the causes of its life & the sources of all activity” (1790, Plate 16).
Thus, we can say that despite Blake’s work’s semi-religious sounding, it nevertheless promotes the ideas of scientific and cultural progress. In it, the author had simply brought Milton’s elaborations on the subject of divinity to an entirely new level – as a true Romanticist, Milton sensed that divinity is something to be sought for within.
Samuel Coleridge
One of Romanticist literature’s most striking trademarks is the fact that it often features the elements of Gothic horror. The Romantic hero always finds itself being confronted by not only external but also internal life’s challenges, while gradually coming to the realization of its existential duality, as an individual. In his article “Gothic Sublimity”, David Morris states: “In Romanticist literature, crime escalates into villainy; innocence is never merely virtuous but immaculate and virginal; devils and demigods, imagined or unimagined, mix with giants, ghosts, and groaning portraits” (1985, 302). The reading of Samuel Coleridge’s poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” substantiates the validity of this statement.
While never ceasing to suffer from hunger and thirst, the poem’s main character Mariner also gets to be tormented by ghosts and spirits, which he slowly begins to perceive as the ultimate embodiments of universal evil.
The fact that Coleridge’s poem features such characters as Death and Night-mare Life-in-Death allows us to draw certain parallels between “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and the “Paradise Lost”, because these characters appear to be semantically related to Milton’s characters of Sin, Mammon, and Death. However, whereas; in “Paradise Lost” highly allegorical characters appear to be deprived of any personal emotions while serving the purpose of enforcing the divine order in the realm of Hell, Coleridge’s Death and Night-mare Life-in-Death act if they derived irrational pleasure out of bringing misery into this world. The reason why Mariner ends up living the life of despair is that Night-mare Life-in-Death had won his soul while playing the game of dice with Death:
“The naked hulk alongside came,
And the twain were casting dice;
The game is done! I’ve won! I’ve won!’
Quoth she, and whistles thrice” (1817).
In its turn, this endows Coleridge’s poem with an aura of Freudian “uncanny” – while being exposed to the ghastly characters of Death and Nightmare Life-in-Death, readers get to confront their own devils that reside within, which strengthens the poem’s overall “appeal to horror”. Unlike Milton, Coleridge did not think of the inclusion of earlier mentioned characters into his poem as the mean of popularizing its personal views on the issues of morality, sin, punishment, and virtue, but merely as the mean of strengthening the poem’s emotional appeal.
Conclusion
The conclusion of this paper can be formulated as follows: Even though 19th-century Romantic poets and writers had made a point in resorting to the themes contained in Classical works of European literature, it is namely exploring these themes’ emotional and sensual subtleties that constituted Romanticists’ foremost agenda. Therefore, it will not be an exaggeration, on our part, to refer to European Romanticists as those who created objective preconditions for the legitimization of the theory of psychoanalysis, during the course of the early 20th century.
Bibliography:
Blake, William. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. GailGastfield. 2010. Web.
Coleridge, Samuel. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. 1817. The Literature Network. Web.
Morris, David “Gothic Sublimity”. New Literary History 16.2 (1985): 299-319. Print.
Schock, Peter “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: Blake’s Myth of Satan and Its Cultural Matrix”. ELH 60.2 (1993): 441-470. Print.