Madness and Mysticism in the Poetry of William Blake
Indeed, the above passage implies, we are deceived. But we have deceived ourselves. And Blake sees it as his task as a poet and engraver to uncover what we have hidden from ourselves the infinite. Blake's temperament, his mood swings, his visions, were not so much, as Wordsworth states, a symptom of madness but rather, as Blake seems to assert, his sensitivity to the mystical underpinnings of life. So is Blake mad? I'm not sure this is a useful question given the blurred line between madness and the mystical in Blake's life and poetry. Rather, the question should be, what can Blake's supposed madness teach us?
All prophecies are fragile. They are subject to contradiction, to falsity. The false prophet, then, one might consider insane. But how does one interpret the language of prophecy? Is it a language of madness, of hidden truth, of images? Such questions are pertinent when discussing the works of visionary poet William Blake. His prophecies or visions informed his poetic style and language and invested them with a vigor, energy, and substance that reach far beyond the mere meaning or signification of language. He claimed to experience visions of the prophet Elijah (among other visions). So was Blake insane? Blake, certainly, suffered from some type of mental illness. His mood swings, his depressions, and his fervent, inspired productivity have been the subject of much debate. However, does mental illness necessarily detract from the value of his visionary poetry? Or does it contribute something to it? These questions cannot be answered adequately unless address the topic of mysticism as well. Blake was a follower of the esoteric religious doctrines of Emmanuel Swedenborg. The intersection of madness and mysticism is key to the understanding of Blake, if only because it demonstrates that this madness did not signify a necessary degeneration in the faculties of the mind, but rather a passionate commitment to the imagination, the spiritual, and the profound.