Alchemical Word-Magic in 'The Winter’s Tale'

[Paul Ferguson]

"Within alchemical writing there is both a religious and scientific register in simultaneous coexistence. The linguistic symbols of alchemy are themselves to be understood as chemical matter embedded in the world by divine providence: a principle manifest in the doctrine of signatures. The natural world offers a complex but ultimately resolvable hermeneutic challenge to the natural scientist, whose job it becomes to be a reader of the book of nature wherein the Creator has inscribed a legible, if often allusive, meaning and purpose. This paper will proceed to explore how early modern alchemical-thinking impacted attitudes towards language and meaning in The Winter’s Tale."

Full text with Download button.

https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/accessus/vol6/iss2/5/

[Paul Ferguson]

See also:

Alchemy, Paracelsianism, and Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale (Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine)
by Martina Zamparo


"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."


https://www.amazon.com/Paracelsianism-Sh...3031051661