Alchemy, Paracelsianism, and Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale

Alchemy, Paracelsianism, and Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale PDF Author: Martina Zamparo
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 303105167X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
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. It also discusses the alchemical significance of water and time in the play’s circular and regenerative pattern and the healing role of women. 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.

Alchemy, Paracelsianism, and Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale

Alchemy, Paracelsianism, and Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale PDF Author: Martina Zamparo
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 303105167X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 388

Get Book

Book Description
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. It also discusses the alchemical significance of water and time in the play’s circular and regenerative pattern and the healing role of women. 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.

The Winter's Tale

The Winter's Tale PDF Author: William Shakespeare
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3387008597
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 149

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Book Description
Reproduction of the original. The publishing house Megali specialises in reproducing historical works in large print to make reading easier for people with impaired vision.

Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale

Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale PDF Author: William Shakespeare
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description


The Works of William Shakespeare: The winter's tale

The Works of William Shakespeare: The winter's tale PDF Author: William Shakespeare
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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The Winter's Tale

The Winter's Tale PDF Author: William Shakespeare
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9780140714883
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description
Presents Shakespeare's drama depicting King Leontes, who accuses his boyhood friend of betrayal, condemns his wife for adultery, and banishes his newborn daughter.

Shakespeare: The Winter's Tale

Shakespeare: The Winter's Tale PDF Author: Norman Thomas Carrington
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Shakespeare The Winter's Tale

Shakespeare The Winter's Tale PDF Author: William Shakespeare
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 142

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Art and Illusion in The Winter's Tale

Art and Illusion in The Winter's Tale PDF Author: B. J. Sokol
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Tragicomedy
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
This work treats a single Shakespeare play from a number of perspectives. The author combines insights from contemporary psychology with art, social and stage histories to challenge the limits of current positivist critical theories. The book also has a central theme: how the dark side of art and illusion must be represented in order to establish the redemptive pattern which The Winter's Tale shares with Shakespeare's other late tragi-comedies.

The Works of Shakespeare

The Works of Shakespeare PDF Author: William Shakespeare
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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The Winter's Tale

The Winter's Tale PDF Author: William Shakespeare
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781692313272
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 112

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Book Description
Originally published in the First Folio of 1623, William Shakespeare's "The Winter's Tale" is a play which has been classified by some critics as a comedy and by others as a romance. The confusion arises out of the fact that the first three acts are filled with intense psychological drama while the last two acts provide a comedic and happy ending. At the outset of the play we are introduced to two childhood friends, Leontes, King of Sicilia, and Polixenes, the King of Bohemia, who has travelled to Sicilia to visit his old friend. After several months of joyful reunion, Polixenes yearns to return home to attend to his affairs and see his son. Leontes however doesn't wish to see his friend go and implores his wife, Queen Hermione, to try and convince him to stay. Hermione easily convinces Polixenes, which should make Leontes happy, but instead arises suspicion that the two may be engaged in an affair considering how quickly Hermione is able to change Polixenes' mind. The jealousy of Leontes sets in motion a series of events which threaten to ruin his entire kingdom and legacy. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper, includes a preface and annotations by Henry N. Hudson, and an introduction by Charles Harold Herford.