Alchemy, Paracelsianism, and Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale (1st ed. 2022) (Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine)

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Synopsis
This book explores the role of alchemy, Paracelsianism, and Hermetic philosophy in one of Shakespeare’s last plays, The Winter’s Tale. A perusal of the vast literary and iconographic repertory of Renaissance alchemy reveals that this late play is imbued with several topoi, myths, and emblematic symbols coming from coeval alchemical, Paracelsian, and Hermetic sources. It also discusses the alchemical significance of water and time in the play’s circular and regenerative pattern and the healing role of women. All the major symbols of alchemy are present in Shakespeare’s play: the intertwined serpents of the caduceus, the chemical wedding, the filius philosophorum, and the so-called rex chymicus. This book also provides an in-depth survey of late Renaissance alchemy, Paracelsian medicine, and Hermetic culture in the Elizabethan and Jacobean ages. Importantly, it contends that The Winter’s Tale, in symbolically retracing the healing pattern of the rota alchemica and in emphasising the Hermetic principles of unity and concord, glorifies King James’s conciliatory attitude.
Copyright:
2022

Book Details

Book Quality:
Publisher Quality
ISBN-13:
9783031051678
Related ISBNs:
9783031051661
Publisher:
Springer International Publishing
Date of Addition:
Copyrighted By:
The Editor
Adult content:
No
Language:
English
Has Image Descriptions:
No
Categories:
History, Entertainment, Nonfiction, Art and Architecture, Literature and Fiction, Drama, Plays and Theater, Language Arts, Sociology
Submitted By:
Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:
This is a copyrighted book.

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