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Darke Hierogliphicks: Alchemy in English Literature from Chaucer to the Restoration (Studies In English Renaissance) Paperback – August 12, 2008

by Stanton J. Linden (Author)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 5 ratings
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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.

Previous page
  1. Part of series
    Studies in the English Renaissance
  2. Print length
    384 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publisher
    University Press of Kentucky
  5. Publication date
    August 12, 2008
  6. Reading age
    18 years and up
  7. Dimensions
    6.13 x 0.88 x 9.25 inches
  8. ISBN-10
    0813192129
  9. ISBN-13
    978-0813192123
  10. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"This very useful, richly detailed, and profusely illustrated book traces the impact of the alchemical art on English literature over a three-hundred year period, from Chaucer to the Restoration."―Cithara

"A most significant contribution to this rapidly expanding field of research. . . . An impressive scholarly book, one that all scholars of Renaissance literature and the history of ideas will want to keep close at hand as a reference work."―Journal of English and Germanic Philology

"Carefully examines literary representations of alchemists and literary appropriations of alchemical terminology."―Medieval Academy of America

"Provides a full coverage of the subject."―Seventeenth-Century News

"Linden's close readings are illuminating and articulate."―Sixteenth Century Journal

"Charts the relationship between alchemy and English literature from the late fourteenth until the late seventeenth century, providing us with a study of the views of a series of outsiders which goes some way to answering this question. . . . Darke Hieroglyphicks is a learned and informative study which has all the marks of a lifetime's interest in the subject."―Times Literary Supplement

"An excellent book, demanding but clearly written and giving every sign of Linden's long and considered attention to his subject."―Ben Jonson Journal

From the Back Cover

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.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ University Press of Kentucky; 1st edition (August 12, 2008)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 384 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0813192129
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0813192123
  • Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.25 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.13 x 0.88 x 9.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 5 ratings

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Stanton J. Linden

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Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
5 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Albert Hand
5.0 out of 5 stars Alchemy as a writerly art
Reviewed in the United States on October 10, 2007
This is a great place to start for anybody interested in the influence of alchemical symbolism on english literature. The alchemists (and especially those who produced alchemical texts) did all kinds of strange, obscure, difficult, puzzling, and therefore fascinating things with language. This fact was not lost on the many important literary figures who never got their hands dirty but found alchemy useful as a theme or symbol in their work, and as this book demonstrates they had many good reasons to take an interest. So will you. Alchemy has been too long neglected as a key element in the religious life of the renaissance and after, and the texts of literary authors dealing with alchemy are an important source for our understanding of this--which still has yet to be fully researched and explained. This book is an important first step, and hopefully will inspire many future studies.

Occultists and spiritual alchemists with an interest in literature and the history of alchemy will find much of value here, although it does not speak to the post-19th century occultist reading of alchemy as much as the renaissance and medieval tradition.
3 people found this helpful
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Jake
4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating subject
Reviewed in the United States on February 10, 2021
I didn't learn as much as I had hoped about alchemy while reading this book. There is no explanation of what the Philosopher's Stone or the Elixir of life really are. As a lay person it was a difficult book. If you are not familiar with Chaucer, the old English is hard to interpret. But it was a fascinating read. I enjoyed the coverage of esoteric poetry more than the satirical side. I feel like it was an M.A. course in the history of literary alchemy.
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Yaakov Mascetti
5.0 out of 5 stars The Language of Alchemy in English Literature
Reviewed in the United States on February 18, 2000
Linden is probably one of the few serious scholars to have taken into consideration the importance of the use of alchemical registers in various central works of late medieval and early modern English literature. Together with an impressive knowledge of the fundamental and less known works of sixteenth century English alchemy, Linden provides his readers with a fisheye view on the idiosyncratic uses authors like Chaucer, Donne, Herbert and others, have made of basic alchemic concepts. The text is important for those scholars and amateurs of the field who still think that alchemy occupies a central position in the "languages", in Pocock's words, spoken in Early Modern England. A work of admirable seriousness and impressive documentation.
8 people found this helpful
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