Night

Blake’s art is informed by his religious visions and the beliefs they instilled in him. His Christian theology is highly idiosyncratic and rarely aligns with traditional doctrine. One of the underlying threads of Blake’s belief is that one must celebrate all of creation, including Satan. He was obsessed with John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost, which places particular emphasis on Satan’s expulsion from Heaven and eventual role in the fall of humankind. Blake believed that Satan’s uprising against God was justified, and that Satan represents a kind of radical free will and individuality that humanity should strive for. In his other poems, particularly The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Blake argued that Christianity could not be complete until Christ’s and Satan’s lessons are married into one belief system.

Most Christian sects view innocence as humanity’s default state, or at least its state of creation. Blake sees the progress out of innocence as a good, but ultimately difficult, thing. As part of the Songs of Innocence section of Songs of Innocence and of Experience, however, “Night” takes a different approach. The light of day is typically associated with knowledge—the same force that drove Adam and Eve from their state of innocence.