The Proverbs of Hell.

The Proverbs of Hell are particularly disturbing because the reasonable subject matter of the text is lent a darker and more sinister tone by the title Blake ascribes to it. If the proverbs were read sans title, then they could (for the most part) be read without too much compunction or worry over their subject matter; however, by giving these proverbs a specifically hellish title implies some hidden meaning, a darker impulse that they are centered around. This may not have been the intention of Blake in his poem, but the result (at least for me) is fairly poignant nonetheless. In this vein it is possible to imagine a seemingly harmless passage of literature that, when attributed to a different source, result in a new meaning perhaps darker or lighter. The Song of Solomon comes to mind (a Hebrew love poem that is now interpreted in the context of Christian scripture), as well as Borges’s Pierre Menard. Regardless, the naming of these proverbs as being of “hell” constructs invisible architectures that suggest that these innocuous statements might have something else going on underneath the surface.