Q: How far and in what ways does Blake portray uncertainty about

religion in the poems?

Blake was a highly religious man. Yet, his views were considered
idiosyncratic during the eighteenth century. He rejected many conventional beliefs
and was outspoken about organised religious authority, which he viewed with
suspicion. The presence of the chapel in his poem ‘The Garden of Love’, which
conventionally presents a positive image, is in fact ambiguous. Its position in the
centre of the ‘green’ suggests its dominance. The poem explores some of the
restrictions Blake saw and detested in the church. The ‘Chapel’ is therefore projected
in a negative light, and is not a convivial place as we might expect, but rather it is
imposing and forbidding. The image of the gates being shut, with the words ‘Thou
shalt not’ written over it would have been surprising to people of Blake’s time. The
church was meant to be a welcoming place for everyone. However, the church can be
perceived to be more political than religious. The notion that the church is not all
positive and is corrupted would have made people in Blake’s time disturbed. The
imperative words, ‘Thou shalt not’ reflects on the Ten Commandments, adding
emphasis on the restriction and curtailment of freedom in which Blake saw organised
religion as being profoundly at odds with. The disturbing image of the ‘priests in
black gowns…walking their rounds’ makes them seem more like policemen of
morality than priests and the negative internal rhymes in the final two lines of the
poem (‘gowns’ and ‘rounds’, ‘briars’ and ‘desires’). This has a deadening effect on
the restrictive effect of the priests. It is clear that ‘joy’ and ‘desires’ have no place in
the priests’ perception of life.
From a different perspective where the focus is on love and sexuality, ‘The
Garden of Love’ can be viewed as a figurative designation to a man’s past of
promiscuity and guiltless pleasure. With the images of a cemetery and the binding
actions of the priests, it projects a symbolic image of marriage. In ‘Blake, Ethics, and
Forgiveness’, by Jeanne Moskal, it is said that Blake profoundly detested the laws of
sexual repression and of universal conformity. Moreover, the Church of England in
Blake’s day was fundamentally compromised, ignoring the experience of religious
emotion and stressing instead rational, practical moralities. This may explain why we
feel a sense of regret coming from the narrator’s pledge to matrimony. It seems where
he was once allowed to express his ‘Love’ liberally to many, now stands a permanent
symbol (the Chapel) of his commitment to monogamy. This poem proves Blake’s
idea of love to be inappropriate to the conventional tradition of love in a religious
context. The ‘Garden’ itself and ‘play[ing] on the green’ can express that the freedom
and lack of responsibility before matrimony are much more inviting than the
commitment required of marriage. Blake found the gates closed because he conceives
marriage as a shutting down if independence and freedom. The script upon the shut
door immediately reminds us of God’s commandment to never commit adultery. The
priests are dressed in black, which embodies Blake’s opinion of the rules of his
marriage laid out by the church. The tombstones can represent his overall inability to
return to a life of sexual pleasure and the death of his excitement to do so. The
symbolism and tone prove Blake’s concept of love and marriage contradictory to the
commonly accepted view of love.
Contrary to the view that pleasure leads to corruption, Blake believed that it
was the suppression of desire, not the enactment of it, which produced negative
effects. In ‘The Tyger’, he uses characters such as Orc to embody desires and their

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creative energies and spirit. In this poem, it raises many questions into the existence
and nature of God. Moreover, it highlights the different interpretations of God
reflected in the New and Old Testament. Blake uses contraries to show how varied the
nature is between creator and his creation, for example, in ‘The Tyger’ it suggests the
notion that God is harsh and is capable of being ruthless, a portrayal reflected in the
Old Testament. The religious uncertainty here is that it contradicts the nature of God
that people believed in the eighteenth century, kind, forgiving, caring and loving. In
comparison, in the poem ‘The Lamb’ Blake suggests a self-sacrificing, loving god,
many of these qualities are preached in the New Testament. Another interpretation
includes with regard to a theme of nature. The simple question, ‘Little Lamb who
made thee’ tells us what the child is attempting, and we realise that this question is the
same as that of countless thinkers over the centuries. The child looks around him and
deduces the concept of God from what he can see. The child’s naïve joy of the whole
countryside is delightful, and his approach to understanding God raises questions in
our minds: Does nature express God? Can we decipher deity by looking at the world
around us? What if the child saw a world of drudgery and ugliness, what sort of God
could be deduced from that? These all evoke religious uncertainties.
The trochaic metre used is a contrast to the iambic one used in ‘The Tyger’.
Here, the iambic metre emphasises the rebellious and destructive nature of both God
and his creation. It also complements the growing confusion and angst within the
stanzas of the poem. One similarity between ‘The Lamb’ and ‘The Tyger’ includes
the repetition of philosophical queries, for example, ‘Little Lamb who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?’ prompts us to question the existence of creator,
whereas in ‘The Tyger’ we are forced to question the nature of the creator, ‘Did he
who made the lamb make thee?’ The act of creation is described as violent, similar to
the workings in a blacksmith as supported by the words ‘furnace’, ‘anvil’ and ‘chain’.
It is rather suggestive of the nature of God and his creation. It also projects industrial
imagery, which implicitly represents the industrial revolution occurring at Britain
during the late 1780s. Words such as ‘fiery’ and ‘burning’ conjure up vivid fiery
images, perhaps insinuating that God was in rage whilst creating the tiger. ‘Could
twist the sinews of thy heart’ can imply God was at war with his own creation, this
presents a striking contrast against the more caring and nurturing God portrayed in
‘The Lamb’. It is a representative of the upheavals in both France and America. The
religious uncertainty is that Blake recreates the fear of God shown in the Old
Testament, at the same time he reflects political uncertainties. Shock would have been
evoked by not people in Blake’s time, but in the twenty-first century as well when we
are compelled to ask if God enjoyed making such a destructive creature, ‘Did he smile
his work to see?’ The slow down in the pace of the poem indicates disbelief at the
negative presentation of the nature of God as well as to build a fear of God’s harsher
and unpredictable side.
Using the Old Testament imagery, Blake reflects on religious issues, such the
nature of God’s relationship with his creation, for example in ‘The Divine Image’.
Here, Blake pursues the idea, following Swedenborg’s teachings, that God resides in
all humans and that all humans are therefore divine. He suggests that we pray in times
of distress and thank ‘God our father dear’ for his blessings. However, it seems in this
poem that Blake is contemplating the form of God as well as his existence. He
describes ‘Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love’ as ‘virtues of delight’ because they form the
‘divine image’ of God. This interpretation presents a more orthodox Christian view,
that God is the holder of these qualities.

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 However, in the third stanza Blake personifies these qualities in man’s image
‘Pity a human face’, and relates them to the characteristics of a human. By doing this,
Blake is trying to show that these are not just God’s qualities but his actual substance
(his being). These virtues are what we think of God to be, and therefore, is God
himself. On a deeper level, perhaps Blake has personified these characteristics
because he is trying to say God is modelled on the ideal human (for we all aspire to be
merciful, peaceful, loving and sympathetic). Blake implies that when we pray, we
pray to the ideal ‘human’, meaning God is an image of man, rather than what the
Bible promotes: that we are an image of God (Genesis). This is where the religious
uncertainty lies as perhaps Blake is suggesting God is, in fact, a mental image. Once
again, like in ‘The Lamb’, he is questioning the very existence of God.
However, this interpretation does seem to differ from Blake’s religious beliefs,
thinking on a deeper level, it does not seem that Blake would have intended such a
agnostic interpretation in his ‘Innocence’ collection. Perhaps Blake is trying to
express the idea of Jesus. Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love are all virtues of Jesus’s
preaching reflected in the New Testament. Furthermore, by showing that God can be
found in human characteristics, he is trying to express Jesus as the mediator between
God and Man. Yet, though there are references to Jesus being in human form ‘And
Peace the human dress’, the rest of the poem remains quite abstract showing that it is
difficult to distinguish between mortality and the divine. The final stanza appears
more positive and pleasant, making the poem appropriate to the theme of innocence
by saying that we ‘all must love the human form’ because we are all an image of God,
no matter our background or ethnicity (which is the traditional Christian view).
Although, ‘Where Mercy, Love and Pity dwell,/ There God is dwelling too’ seems to
contradict this view by meaning that instead of us being a form of God, God can
actually be found in us through these virtues. Blake reference to ‘the human dress’
suggests the outward appearance of humanity implying this is unimportant compared
to the intangible virtues of mankind. By saying we must love all ‘in heathen Turk or
Jew’ Blake wishes us to ignore racial prejudices and love all as we are all made in the
vision of God. In ‘The Divine Image’, we can see Blake arguing against restrictive
organised religions and for spirituality, without insinuating any mockery of a sceptical
tone. It may be he is criticising the Church of the time, as he did in the ‘Garden of
Love’. The preaching throughout the poem is to be aware of the senses are part of
God, and hence commenting that man and God cannot be separated.
Blake is a Christian, yet his beliefs are complicated where it did not often
corroborate with the usual conventions of religious practices during his time.
Therefore, it is not surprising that many of his poems reflect religious uncertainties
simply because he thought differently. Some people say he created his own form of
Christianity, which had a lot to do with imagination. For Blake, the Church and
believing in God were not the same thing. ‘The Garden of Love’ can support his view
that the Church was political, and he believed that God is not. One of the main
messages in the Gospels is that each person can have direct contact with God, and he
believed that people did not need a Church to communicate with God, but through
prayer, imagination and good deeds. This once again contrasts against what people
believed in the late eighteenth century. The Church was the only place to claim
sanctuary, to confess and many in fact relied on the Church for their religious
teachings and purposes, especially since during that time many were illiterate and had
to depend on the priests to read to them.