Alchemist in Literature: From Dante to the Present

252 Pages·2015·10.58 MB·English

by  Theodore Ziolkowski

THE ALCHEMIST IN LITERATURE

The Alchemist in
Literature
From Dante to the Present
THEODORE ZIOLKOWSKI
1
3
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Preface
When I revealed tomy family andfriends that my interests were leading
mefromcultsandconspiracies(LureoftheArcane,2013)toalchemy,they
began giving me strange looks. I hastened to assure them that I had no
intention of stealing off to a laboratory to crouch over crucibles and
alembicswhileawaitingthegenerationofthephilosopher’sstone.Rather,
I was returning to my study and the library in an effort to understand a
differentmystery.Whyhavealchemyandthefigureofthealchemistsince
the twelfth century exerted such a powerful appeal in Western culture?
Whydidso manygreatwriters ofthelate MiddleAgesandRenaissance,
despitetheirownskepticism,feelcalledupontosatirizewhatwasknown
as“theArt”?Why,evenafterthelureofcreatingfortunesbytransmuting
basemetalsintogoldwasprovedscientificallyunfeasible,didthealchem-
istcontinuetoprovidesuchanalluringfigureinEuropeanliterature?Why
did such twentieth-century thinkers as C. G. Jung and Mircea Eliade
devotesomuchoftheirworktothetopic?Whyhavetheterms“alchemy”
and “alchemist” become such positive buzzwords in advertising and
publicity?
In that context, then, I want to emphasize that this book is not about
alchemy as such—a topic on which the bibliography is vast and rich. In
thefirstchapterIdiscussalchemyonlytotheminimalextentnecessaryto
introducesomeoftheprincipalideas,terms,andnamesthatoccurinthe
literary works featured in later chapters. As my title indicates, this book
focusesnotonalchemybutonitspractitioners.Becausegeneralnotionsof
alchemyoftenpermeatedculturequitebroadly,alchemicalimagesturnup
frequently in works—for instance, Shakespeare’s poems and plays—that
have absolutely nothing to do with the Art or its adepts. In contrast,
Iaddressworksinwhichself-proclaimedalchemistsactuallyappearasthe
principal figure or, at least, as a significant representative. Throughout it
hasbeenmyaimtodiscover,fromoneperiodtothenext,thereasonsthat
explain the attraction of a figure so remote from the general rationalism
of modern times. The fact that views of the alchemist have indeed,
andespeciallysincethelateeighteenthcentury,undergonetransmutations
from one generation to the next justifies my chapter divisions and
theirheadings.
While the bibliography on alchemy itself is awesomely vast and covers
manymillennia,thestudiesofalchemyandliterature,thoughconsiderable
and steadily increasing, are still manageable. First, numerous books and
viii Preface
articles,citedattheappropriatepointsinmynoteswithfullbibliographical
details,havebeen devoted tospecific writers and their use ofalchemy:for
instance, Ronald Gray’s Goethe the Alchemist (1952); Geneviève Spencer-
Noel’s Zenon et le thème de l’alchémiedans L’Oeuvre au noir de Marguerite
Yourcenar (1981); and William T. Gorski’s Yeats and Alchemy (1996).
A second group of works deals with the theme during specific periods in
several national literatures: Timothy Materer’s Modernist Alchemy: Poetry
and the Occult (1995) (English poetry of the twentieth century); Stanton
J.Linden’sDarkeHierogliphicks:AlchemyinEnglishLiteraturefromChaucer
totheRenaissance(1996);BurkhardDohm’sPoetischeAlchemie:Öffnungzur
Sinnlichkeit in der Hohelied- und Bibeldichtung von der protestantischen
BarockmystikbiszumPietismus(2000);RandallA.Clack’sTheMarriageof
Heaven and Earth: Alchemical Regeneration in the Works of Taylor, Poe,
Hawthorn, and Fuller (2000); and Anke Timmermann’s Verse and Trans-
mutation: A Corpus of Middle English Alchemical Poetry (2013). A third
group,finally,considersworksinalongerorbroadercomparativecontext.
Bettina L. Knapp’s Theatre and Alchemy (1980), based on her conviction
that “any play may be interpreted alchemically” (16), uses alchemical
terminology to describe the dénouement of various dramatic works even
when they have nothing to do with alchemy or alchemists. Robert
Marteau’s La Récolte de la rosée: La Tradition alchimique dans la littérature
(1995)consistsofpoeticandlooselyorganizedreflectionsonanassortment
of mainly French texts from the Middle Ages to the present. David
Meakin’s Hermetic Fictions: Alchemy and Irony in the Novel (1995) looks
indetailattwelvewritersfromZolatothepresentinEnglish,French,and
German who use alchemical images. Robert Stockhammer’s Zaubertexte:
Die Wiederkehr der Magie und die Literatur 1880–1945 (2000) considers
alchemy along with other occult practices in mainly German and French
literatureofthespecifiedperiod.ElmarSchenkel’sessayisticDieElixiereder
Schrift:Literatur undAlchemie(2003) surveysin somefortypagesroughly
the same periods and many of the same texts as I do in my chapters.
Historians of art have also produced beautifully illustrated catalogues and
studies of alchemyandalchemistsin artfromantiquitytothe present:for
instance, Gareth Roberts’s The Mirror of Alchemy: Alchemical Ideas and
ImagesinManuscriptsandBooks(1994)andUrszulaSzulakowska’sAlchemy
inContemporaryArt(2011).
What to my knowledge we never find, however, is a study devoted to
thefigureofthealchemistinliterature,eitherinaspecificliteraryperiod
or in a comparative context since the Middle Ages. John Read’s The
Alchemist: In Life, Literature and Art (1947) devotes a chapter (25–55)
totwoEnglishexamples—Chaucer’sTheCanon’sYeoman’sTaleandBen
Jonson’s The Alchemist—before turning for the balance of his brief
Preface ix
monograph to the figure of the alchemist in art from Dürer to Joseph
Wright. A partial exception is Joachim Schummer’s article “Historical
Rootsofthe‘MadScientist’:ChemistsinNineteenth-CenturyLiterature”
(Ambix 53[2006],99–127),whichargues thatthe modern image ofthe
“mad scientist” is based on medieval depictions of the alchemist. I have
notundertakeninthefollowingchapterstodealwiththevastspectrumof
aspectslooselyconsidered“alchemical,”fromthespecificallyoperativeto
the broadly hermetic, from colors and elements to “chymical weddings”
andpsychologicalsublimation.InsteadIproposetoconsiderthealchemist
himself,initiallyasamirrorofshiftingattitudestowardalchemyand,later,
as an exemplification of the writer’s view of his art, the psychoanalyst’s
interpretationofdreams,andseveralothers.
Obviously,inastudysurveyingsomanycenturiesandliteratures,one
cannotaspiretocompleteness.Nodoubt,havingrestrictedmyselfmainly
to works in English, French, and German, I have missed examples that
will occur to some readers. But I believe that I have introduced enough
cases from each period to establish a persuasive pattern—a pattern into
which,Ihope,otherexampleswillreadilyfit.Ihavedealtwithalchemyas
such only to the extent necessary to clarify the literary texts, citing in
my notes several works that will take the interested reader further. After
all,withrelativelyfewexceptions—forinstance,Goethe,Huysmans,and
Yeats—theknowledgeofthewritersandpoetsremainedfairlygeneraland
restricted mainly to what was commonly known during their respective
times. For my own purposes, by the way, I have found especially handy
and useful as a reference tool the recent Alchemie: Lexikon einer herme-
tischen Wissenschaft (1998), edited by Claus Priesner and Karin Figala,
whichincludesbiographicalsketchesoftheprincipalalchemistsaswellas
articlesonalchemicaltermsandprocedures.
Insomecases,evenwhentranslationsareavailable—andoftentheyare
not—I have preferred for the sake of accuracy and consistency in the
renditionofalchemicaltermstoprovidemyownversions.Therecapitula-
tionsservetwopurposes:first,manyworksarenotavailableintranslationor
easily accessible modern editions; second, the recapitulations are not mere
retellings but amount to critical analyses. In the case of a few names—
notably Raymondus Lullus and Arnoldus de Villa Nova—I have retained
thealternateformsusedbythevariousauthors.
I am grateful to Jacqueline Baker, Senior Commissioning Editor for
Literature at Oxford University Press, for her encouraging initial interest
inmyprojectandforpatientlyguidingitthroughthereviewprocess.Two
anonymous readers offered heartening critiques of my manuscript and
provided useful suggestions for its improvement. Rachel Platt, Senior