The Spirits of Satire: Kant and Blake Read Emanuel Swedenborg

Abstract:Emanuel Swedenborg was a scientist and mystic whose religious writings attracted a large following in the late eighteenth century. Both Immanuel Kant and William Blake wrote satires of Swedenborg's work, but their satires mask a deep ambivalence. They are fascinated by, and sometimes envious of, Swedenborg's visionary powers even as they remain skeptical of these powers. Both the poet and the philosopher find a tentative resolution for this ambivalence in their accounts of poetry, which claim that poetic inspiration is a more trustworthy guide to the spirit world than Swedenborg's systematic theology, because poetry does not attempt to present the experience of the spirit world with the specious certainty of a metaphysical system.