Ziolkowski, Theodore (Author)
Oxford University Press
Physical Details: 240
Language: English
Unlike 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 wholly undermined alchemy, the figure of the alchemist began to emerge again in literature--now as a humanitarian hero or as a spirit striving for sublimation. Following these esoteric romanticizations, as scholarly interest in alchemy intensified, writers were attracted to the figure of the alchemist and his quest for power. The fin-de-siecle saw a further transformation as poets saw in the alchemist a symbol for the poet per se and others, influenced by the prevailing spiritism, as a manifestation of the religious spirit. During the interwar years, as writers sought surrogates for the widespread loss of religious faith, esoteric alchemy underwent a pronounced revival, and many writers turned to the figure of the alchemist as a spiritual model or, in the case of Paracelsus in Germany, as a national figurehead. This tendency, theorized by C. G. Jung in several major studies, inspired after World War II a vast popularization of the figure in novels--historical, set in the present, or juxtaposing past and present-- in England, France, Germany, Italy, Brazil, and the United States. The inevitable result of this popularization was the trivialization of the figure in advertisements for healing and cooking or in articles about scientists and economists. In sum: the figure of the alchemist in literature provides a seismograph for major shifts in intellectual and cultural history.
...MoreReview Howard G. Barth (2019) Review of "Alchemist in Literature: From Dante to the Present". Ambix: Journal of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry (pp. 364-365).
Similar Citations
Book
Mike A. Zuber;
(2021)
Spiritual Alchemy: From Jacob Boehme to Mary Anne Atwood
(/isis/citation/CBB053241027/)
Book
Principe, Lawrence M.;
(2007)
Chymists and Chymistry: Studies in the History of Alchemy and Early Modern Chemistry
(/isis/citation/CBB000700925/)
Article
Rafał T. Prinke;
Mike A. Zuber;
(2020)
'Learn to Restrain Your Mouth': Alchemical Rumours and their Historiographical Afterlives
(/isis/citation/CBB585369113/)
Article
Giordano, Michael J.;
(2003)
Reverse Transmutations: Béroalde de Verville's Parody of Paracelsus in Le Moyen de parvenir: An Alchemical Language of Skepticism in the French Baroque
(/isis/citation/CBB000660488/)
Article
Barbieri, Patrizio;
(2003)
The Technology of Metal Organ Pipes: Italy vs. France, c.1300--1900
(/isis/citation/CBB001023814/)
Book
Hagen, Margareth;
Skagen, Margery Vibe;
(2013)
Literature and Chemistry: Elective Affinities
(/isis/citation/CBB001551091/)
Book
Jürgen P. Melzer;
(2020)
Wings for the Rising Sun: A Transnational History of Japanese Aviation
(/isis/citation/CBB831802710/)
Book
Schweber, Silvan S.;
(2012)
Nuclear Forces: The Making of the Physicist Hans Bethe
(/isis/citation/CBB001201092/)
Book
Glynn Custred;
(2016)
A History of Anthropology as a Holistic Science
(/isis/citation/CBB463038781/)
Book
Rose, Jonathan E.;
(2021)
The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes
(/isis/citation/CBB516804754/)
Article
Steve Mentz;
(2019)
Experience Is Better than Knowledge: Premodern Ocean Science and the Blue Humanities
(/isis/citation/CBB088326937/)
Chapter
Carlo Toffalori;
(2018)
Lo Cielo del Sole: la Matematica e Dante
(/isis/citation/CBB188109492/)
Book
Nicolas Guilhot;
(2017)
After the enlightenment: Political realism and international relations in the mid-twentieth century
(/isis/citation/CBB962952461/)
Book
Barth, Fredrik;
(2005)
One Discipline, Four Ways: British, German, French, and American Anthropology
(/isis/citation/CBB000550046/)
Book
Backhouse, Roger E.;
(2000)
Early Histories of Economic Thought 1824-1914
(/isis/citation/CBB000101659/)
Article
Ku-ming (Kevin) Chang;
(2021)
From University to Court: The Reversal of Stahl’s Positions on Gold-Making
(/isis/citation/CBB866446574/)
Chapter
Giulio Ferroni;
(2019)
Il punto e il cerchio: geometria dantesca
(/isis/citation/CBB919628327/)
Book
Annibale Mottana;
(2023)
"Faville vive". Le pietre preziose e non preziose nella Commedia di Dante in rapporto ai testi medievali in prosa e poesia a lui vicini
(/isis/citation/CBB220665011/)
Chapter
Gallarino, Marco;
(2008)
Il ruolo cosmogonico della rovina angelica nel pensiero di Dante
(/isis/citation/CBB001020549/)
Article
Douglas J. Lanska;
(2019)
The Development and Evolution of “Cerebral Thermometry”: The Physiology Underlying a Nineteenth-Century Approach to Cerebral Localization and Neurological Diagnosis
(/isis/citation/CBB416833074/)
Renaissance Quarterly
Journal of the History of the Neurosciences
Early Science and Medicine: A Journal for the Study of Science, Technology and Medicine in the Pre-modern Period
Configurations: A Journal of Literature, Science, and Technology
Ambix: Journal of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry
Be the first to comment!