Description
Book SynopsisUnlike most other studies of alchemy and literature, which focus on alchemical imagery in poetry of specific periods or writers, this book traces the figure of the alchemist in Western literature from its first appearance in the Eighth Circle of Dante''s Inferno down to the present. From the beginning alchemy has had two aspects: exoteric or operative (the transmutation of baser metals into gold) and esoteric or speculative (the spiritual transformation of the alchemist himself). From Dante to Ben Jonson, during the centuries when the belief in exoteric alchemy was still strong and exploited by many charlatans to deceive the gullible, writers in major works of many literatures treated alchemists with ridicule in an effort to expose their tricks. From the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, as that belief weakened, the figure of the alchemist disappeared, even though Protestant poets in England and Germany were still fond of alchemical images. But when eighteenth-century science almost wh
Trade Reviewa thorough, thoughtful analysis ... [Ziolkowski's] collection of lunatics, lovers and poets drawn passionately to alchemys powerful symbolism shows that the majority pursued the topic with deadpan irony as recently as the early twenty-first century ... It is good to see an explicit effort to ask why alchemy has "a special appeal". * Diane Purkiss, Times Literary Supplement *
Table of ContentsIntroduction, or Materia Prima Satirizations, or Nigredo Romanticizations, or Cauda Pavonis Adaptations, or Albedo Poeticizations, or Fermentatio Spiritualizations, or Rubedo Popularizations, or Projectio Conclusion, or Quinta Essentia Index
