1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910616387003321

Autore

Zamparo Martina

Titolo

Alchemy, Paracelsianism, and Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale / / by Martina Zamparo

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cham : , : Springer International Publishing : , : Imprint : Palgrave Macmillan, , 2022

ISBN

9783031051678

9783031051661

Edizione

[1st ed. 2022.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (388 pages)

Collana

Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine, , 2634-6443

Disciplina

822.33

Soggetti

European literature - Renaissance, 1450-1600

Drama

Theater - History

Great Britain - History

Medicine and the humanities

Culture - Study and teaching

Early Modern and Renaissance Literature

Theatre History

History of Britain and Ireland

Medical Humanities

Visual Culture

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

1. Introduction -- PART I. "Emperors, kings and princes desired this science". Elizabethan and Jacobean England -- 2. Alchemy in Elizabethan England -- 3. Alchemy and Paracelsianism at the Jacobean Court -- PART II. The Alchemical Performance of The Winter's Tale. A Reading of the Play -- 4. Leontes's tale of winter -- 5. Water and Time -- 6. Art and Nature -- 7. The Statue Scene -- PART III. Jacobean Politics and Religion in the Play -- 8. The Winter's Tale and James I -- 9. Conclusions. .

Sommario/riassunto

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 topoi, myths, and emblematic imagery coming from coeval alchemical, Paracelsian, and Hermetic sources. 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.