Continuing strong interest in alchemy and hermeticism in many academic fields is reflected in the growing number of scholarly books and articles, specialized journals, colloquia and conferences, and university-level courses and seminars devoted to these and related subjects. Furthermore, as a visit to virtually any bookshop reveals, there exists a large—and perhaps steadily increasing—popular and semi-popular market for these works. Two related characteristics mark the academic, research-oriented side of this burgeoning enterprise: its interdisciplinary nature and its tendency to reassess and reinterpret, often radically, the authors, works, and ideas that are its focus, frequently with the result of discovering a high level of alchemical and hermetic interest where previously it had not been suspected or at least readily admitted.
This collection of new essays reflects this groundswell of activity, touching on fields as diverse as the history of science and medicine, literature, history, art history and iconography, philosophy, religion, and numismatics. Contributors include both internationally known scholars and several new and original voices. The period of focus is 1500 to 1700 and essays on both English and Continental culture are included. The title Mystical Metal of Gold alludes to alchemy’s spiritual and physical—esoteric and exoteric—dimensions and suggests the rich diversity of this vital field of research.
Stanton J. Linden is Professor Emeritus of English at Washington State University. He has published widely, served as general editor of the reprint series English Renaissance Hermeticism, and for twenty years prior to retirement as editor of the journal Cauda Pavonis: Studies in Hermeticism.
Contents
Introduction
Part One: Lives and Works of the Alchemists
Jonathan Hughes, “The Humanity of Thomas Charnock, an Elizabethan Alchemist”
Michael Wilding, “A Biography of Edward Kelly, the English Alchemist and Associate of Dr. John Dee”
Lyndy Abraham, “A Biography of the English Alchemist Arthur Dee, Author of Fasciculus Chemicus, and Son of Dr. John Dee”
Part Two: Alchemical Artifacts: Texts, Collections, and Classifications
Vladimír Karpenko, “Witnesses of a Dream: Alchemical Coins and Medals”
R. Ian McCallum, “Alchemical Scrolls Associated with George Ripley”
George R. Keiser, “Preserving the Heritage: Middle English Verse Treatises in Early Modern Manuscripts”
Thomas Willard, “Alchemy in the Theater, Museum, and Library, 1602–1702”
Part Three: Spirit and Flesh
Michael T. Walton, “Alchemy, Chemistry, and the Six Days of Creation”
Peter J. Forshaw, “Subliming Spirits: Physical-Chemistry and Theo-Alchemy in the Works of Heinrich Khunrath (1560–1605)”
Urszula Szulakowska, “The Alchemical Medicine and Christology of Robert Fludd and Abraham von Franckenberg”
Part Four: Alchemy and Seventeenth-Century English Authors
Yaakov Mascetti, “‘This is the famous stone’: George Herbert’s Poetic Alchemy in ‘The Elixir’”
Alan Rudrum, “‘These fragments I have shored against my ruins’: Henry Vaughan, Alchemical Philosophy, and the Great Rebellion”
Stanton J. Linden, “Smatterings of the Philosopher’s Stone: Sir Thomas Browne and Alchemy”
Part Five: New Directions
Penny Bayer, “From Kitchen Hearth to Learned Paracelsianism: Women and Alchemy in the Renaissance”
Laurinda S. Dixon, “The Cure of Folly by Hieronymous Bosch: Alchemy, Medicine, and Morality”
György E. Szönyi, “Representations of Renaissance Hermetism in Twentieth-Century Postmodern Fiction”
Index
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mystical metal of gold : essays on alchemy and Renaissance culture / edited by Stanton J. Linden.
p. cm. — (AMS studies in the Renaissance ; no. 42)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13 978-0-404-62341-8 (alk. paper)
1. Alchemy—History—16th century.
2. Alchemy—History—17th century.
3. Alchemists—Biography.
4. Science, Renaissance.
5. Philosophy, Renaissance.
I. Linden, Stanton J., 1935–
II. Series.
QD26.M97 2007
540.1'12—dc22 2005055554
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