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Studies in the English Renaissance
Darke Hierogliphicks: Alchemy in English Literature from Chaucer to the Restoration
The literary influence of alchemy and hermeticism in the work of most medieval and early modern authors has been overlooked. Stanton Linden now provides the first comprehensive examination of this influence on English literature from the late Middle Ages through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Drawing extensively on alchemical allusions as well as on the practical and theoretical background of the art and its pictorial tradition, Linden demonstrates the pervasiveness of interest in alchemy during this three-hundred-year period. Most writers—including Langland, Gower, Barclay, Eramus, Sidney, Greene, Lyly, and Shakespeare—were familiar with alchemy, and references to it appear in a wide range of genres. Yet the purposes it served in literature from Chaucer through Jonson were narrowly satirical.
In literature of the seventeenth century, especially in the poetry of Donne, Herbert, Vaughan, and Milton, the functions of alchemy changed. Focusing on Bacon, Donne, Herbert, Vaughan, and Milton—in addition to Jonson and Butler—Linden demonstrates the emergence of new attitudes and innovative themes, motifs, images, and ideas.
The use of alchemy to suggest spiritual growth and change, purification, regeneration, and millenarian ideas reflected important new emphases in alchemical, medical, and occultist writing. This new tradition did not continue, however, and Butler's return to satire was contextualized in the antagonism of the Royal Society and religious Latitudinarians to philosophical enthusiasm and the occult. Butler, like Shadwell and Swift, expanded the range of satirical victims to include experimental scientists as well as occult charlatans. The literary uses of alchemy thus reveal the changing intellectual milieus of three centuries.
Drawing extensively on alchemical allusions as well as on the practical and theoretical background of the art and its pictorial tradition, Linden demonstrates the pervasiveness of interest in alchemy during this three-hundred-year period. Most writers—including Langland, Gower, Barclay, Eramus, Sidney, Greene, Lyly, and Shakespeare—were familiar with alchemy, and references to it appear in a wide range of genres. Yet the purposes it served in literature from Chaucer through Jonson were narrowly satirical.
In literature of the seventeenth century, especially in the poetry of Donne, Herbert, Vaughan, and Milton, the functions of alchemy changed. Focusing on Bacon, Donne, Herbert, Vaughan, and Milton—in addition to Jonson and Butler—Linden demonstrates the emergence of new attitudes and innovative themes, motifs, images, and ideas.
The use of alchemy to suggest spiritual growth and change, purification, regeneration, and millenarian ideas reflected important new emphases in alchemical, medical, and occultist writing. This new tradition did not continue, however, and Butler's return to satire was contextualized in the antagonism of the Royal Society and religious Latitudinarians to philosophical enthusiasm and the occult. Butler, like Shadwell and Swift, expanded the range of satirical victims to include experimental scientists as well as occult charlatans. The literary uses of alchemy thus reveal the changing intellectual milieus of three centuries.
- GenresNonfictionAlchemy
373 pages, Hardcover
First published August 12, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 30, 2011
I borrowed this book through interlibrary loan, given that alchemy books can be very uneven in quality. I had to renew it because it was so rich in information, and approached the subject with a cool head. For those who aren’t interested in alchemy, know that it is a scholarly minefield, with most people dismissing it as the delusions of a prior age, a proto-science. Historians will tell you that visiting the past is like visiting a foreign country. In order to be a good guest you must not only try to behave as your hosts do, but to some degree think as they think. And frankly, the most interesting books are about how folks got it wrong, and why they got it wrong. Alchemy is so multidimensional, one of the most important questions is, what did this alchemical author want? Some want to get rich and others want to heal the world with the Panacea. Some are hoping to attain a higher relationship with God. Some want all three things and then there are others who simply want to cheat people. It’s a confusing topic, and one usually discussed in metaphorical terms, with information diffused through out the text, or with deliberate dead ends. So enter the labyrinth…
In Linden’s study of alchemy’s reputation he posits a theory that alchemy was a subject of scorn, starting with Erasmus, and continued to be satirized until it was used as a means of spiritual development. After a certain period where moral issues and spirituality were discussed in alchemical language, it again became the source of mocking plays like Butler’s Hudibras. It’s not always clear to me if alchemy is being satirized or if the greed and gullibility of the participants is being satirized. Having not read many of the authors Linden studied, I would have to avail myself of Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, more Donne, more Herbert, etc. to have an informed opinion about that distinction. I am not informed enough to be convinced of Linden’s periodization, especially since the book is so narrowly focused on England.
What I most appreciated was Linden’s careful scholarship and his knowledge of the dispersal of alchemical information in England. Most of my frenetic note-taking was titles of works and their lineage, translations, re-titling, etc. I hadn’t heard of The Tillage of Light, for instance, or at least I failed to take note of the work’s significance. Much of my prior reading has been written by history of science types, with little interest into the pursuit of personal purification through symbolic language. One of the most famous of these, Robert Fludd, is familiar to me, of course, but the spread of his fellow esoteric alchemists was lacking. It was also lovely to read someone who was writing about the topic from a literary background, who did not feel the need to use hostile dismissals of people like Helen Metzger (not mentioned) and Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs, the disciple of Francis Yates. He refrains from criticizing the errors that were found in Dobbs-she attributed a manuscript found in Isaac Newton’s papers to him when it actually was a copy of George Starkey’s work. Many people have used this to dismiss all her work. As for Yates, I have a wary affection for her, although her literary observations also leave me unconvinced for the reason stated above. Linden is a far more exhaustive writer on alchemy in literature, and could easily have taken Yates to task. Instead he cites her when she has a valid point to make, and avoids personal attacks. Ditto with Carl Jung. I don’t know how to describe Linden, except as a “historian of literature” because he deals with ancients and moderns with equal diplomacy, always posing the question, what do they want? Yates was driven to get esoterica into the discussion of history. Dobbs was driven to get us to understand the Janus faced nature of Newton’s real scholarship. I must note here that the people who have born the greatest censure in this are…women.
Generally the book is too focused to orient someone to the principles of alchemy, although Linden is very lucid when he explains things. I’d buy this book, although in my current circumstances, it will have to be a used copy.
In Linden’s study of alchemy’s reputation he posits a theory that alchemy was a subject of scorn, starting with Erasmus, and continued to be satirized until it was used as a means of spiritual development. After a certain period where moral issues and spirituality were discussed in alchemical language, it again became the source of mocking plays like Butler’s Hudibras. It’s not always clear to me if alchemy is being satirized or if the greed and gullibility of the participants is being satirized. Having not read many of the authors Linden studied, I would have to avail myself of Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, more Donne, more Herbert, etc. to have an informed opinion about that distinction. I am not informed enough to be convinced of Linden’s periodization, especially since the book is so narrowly focused on England.
What I most appreciated was Linden’s careful scholarship and his knowledge of the dispersal of alchemical information in England. Most of my frenetic note-taking was titles of works and their lineage, translations, re-titling, etc. I hadn’t heard of The Tillage of Light, for instance, or at least I failed to take note of the work’s significance. Much of my prior reading has been written by history of science types, with little interest into the pursuit of personal purification through symbolic language. One of the most famous of these, Robert Fludd, is familiar to me, of course, but the spread of his fellow esoteric alchemists was lacking. It was also lovely to read someone who was writing about the topic from a literary background, who did not feel the need to use hostile dismissals of people like Helen Metzger (not mentioned) and Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs, the disciple of Francis Yates. He refrains from criticizing the errors that were found in Dobbs-she attributed a manuscript found in Isaac Newton’s papers to him when it actually was a copy of George Starkey’s work. Many people have used this to dismiss all her work. As for Yates, I have a wary affection for her, although her literary observations also leave me unconvinced for the reason stated above. Linden is a far more exhaustive writer on alchemy in literature, and could easily have taken Yates to task. Instead he cites her when she has a valid point to make, and avoids personal attacks. Ditto with Carl Jung. I don’t know how to describe Linden, except as a “historian of literature” because he deals with ancients and moderns with equal diplomacy, always posing the question, what do they want? Yates was driven to get esoterica into the discussion of history. Dobbs was driven to get us to understand the Janus faced nature of Newton’s real scholarship. I must note here that the people who have born the greatest censure in this are…women.
Generally the book is too focused to orient someone to the principles of alchemy, although Linden is very lucid when he explains things. I’d buy this book, although in my current circumstances, it will have to be a used copy.
December 17, 2012
Great information about alchemy in literature - helped my research a lot, and was easy enough to read. I found myself highlighting paragraphs at a time. It took me a few months to really get through, though.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews