William Blake masterfully used contrasting symbols to explore the human soul. His poetry creates a universe of dynamic tension. Two of the most enduring symbols are the cistern and the fountain. These images represent opposing forces within human consciousness. Blake famously captured this duality in a line from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: “The cistern contains: the fountain overflows.” This single proverb unlocks a deep understanding of his revolutionary vision for humanity, art, and spirituality.
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The Cistern: A Symbol of Contained Knowledge
A cistern is a man-made tank for storing water. It holds a finite, still resource. For Blake, this physical object became a powerful metaphor. The cistern symbolizes rigid, contained, and static forms of knowledge. It represents reason that is divorced from imagination. This is the intellect that categorizes and restricts rather than creates.
Furthermore, William Blake Archive connected the cistern to the oppressive structures of his time. These included organized religion, dogmatic science, and tyrannical laws. He saw these institutions as containers that limit human potential. They hold back the natural flow of creative and spiritual energy. In Blake’s personal mythology, the figure of Urizen embodies this restrictive principle. Urizen is the great architect of laws and limitations, constantly measuring and binding the universe. Consequently, the cistern is his perfect emblem: a structure built to contain life-giving water, preventing it from flowing freely.
The Fountain: An Emblem of Overflowing Genius
In stark contrast to the cistern stands the fountain. A fountain is a source, a natural spring that bubbles up from the earth. Its nature is to overflow. It gives endlessly from an inexhaustible source. Therefore, William Blake Archive – Scholarly Resour… used the fountain to symbolize the infinite power of imagination and divine inspiration. This is the energy of the poetic genius, the prophetic voice that cannot be contained.
This overflowing energy is spontaneous, dynamic, and life-affirming. It represents true spiritual insight, which is not learned from books but experienced directly. While the cistern represents acquired knowledge, the fountain signifies innate creative power. In Blake’s mythology, this creative force is often associated with figures like Los, the eternal prophet and artist. Los works at his forge, constantly creating new forms and resisting the static world of Urizen. The fountain, therefore, is the very spirit of Los’s work: a perpetual, energetic outpouring that renews the world.
The Dance of Divine Contraries
Blake’s famous proverb, “The cistern contains: the fountain overflows,” is not simply a judgment of good versus evil. Instead, it illustrates his Doctrine of Contraries. Blake believed that “Without Contraries is no progression.” He argued that forces like reason and energy, or law and liberty, are both necessary for existence. The cistern’s containment and the fountain’s overflow represent two essential states of the human soul. A mind needs structure, but it also desperately needs inspiration.
The problem, in Blake’s view, arose when one contrary dominated the other. He saw his own society as one that excessively valued the cistern. It praised reason, control, and restriction while suppressing imagination, desire, and spiritual freedom. Blake championed the fountain because he believed its energy was being dangerously repressed. He called for a liberation of this imaginative force to achieve a balanced and truly human existence. Source. William Blake: The Doctrine of…
A Vision for Human Liberation
The symbolism of the cistern and fountain extends throughout Blake’s complex mythological works, including The Four Zoas and Jerusalem. These images consistently represent the struggle between the forces of limitation and the powers of imaginative freedom. The cold, analytical world of Urizen is always a world of static cisterns. Meanwhile, the vibrant, prophetic world of Los is one of flowing rivers and life-giving fountains.
Ultimately, Blake’s use of these symbols serves a profound purpose. He urges his readers to break open their own internal cisterns. He wants us to question the rigid doctrines and self-imposed limitations that hold us captive. Instead, he encourages us to seek out the fountain of inspiration within. For William Blake, true salvation—both personal and societal—comes from allowing the divine, imaginative energy to overflow, transforming the world with its creative power.