Abstract:
The argument that unfolds throughout this thesis represents the development
of my own understanding of the Renaissance conception and application of
alchemical theories and philosophies, especially as it applies to my appreciation
of the works of two of the crucial figures of the period – Shakespeare and Ben
Jonson. These men were far more than entertainers. They were committed to
their art as an essential component in the shaping and maintenance of the
societal conscience. As dramatist-philosophers, they not only treated issues of
topical interest and debate around the individual in relation to individual, and
the individual in relation to the larger worlds of nature and politics, but also
provided learned and insightful comment on the possible nature and function
of the individual soul/mind in relation to itself. My deepening sensitivity to and
comprehension of early modern alchemical philosophies and practices as apt
analogies for psychological development led me to believe that Jonson and
Shakespeare, separately though similarly, externalized, or dramatized, the inner
trajectory of self-knowledge.
This thesis, then, represents my own exploratory expedition into Renaissance
epistemological thought as embodied in various alchemical texts. The
correlations between alchemy and early modern psychologies become more
apparent with each chapter. In the opening chapters, the historical and
intellectual context for an hypothesis of a Renaissance psychology is set out.
Chapter Three focuses on Renaissance conceptions of self-knowledge. The
classical dictum of nosce teipsum is explored in relation to a range of
contemporary alchemical arguments about the nature of philosophy and knowledge. In Chapter Four, I present a proposal of a Renaissance ‘model’ of
psychological development, which may be seen to be analogous to the
alchemical process as widely understood and depicted in the literature of the
time. The fifth chapter is a ‘bridge’ between the foregoing thesis and the
expository analysis of Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist and Shakespeare’s The
Tempest: it particularizes the foregoing argument and attempts to come to some
apprehension of Jonson’s individual conception of self-knowledge and
psychological development. The sixth chapter demonstrates this apprehension
in relation to Jonson’s The Alchemist.
Shakespeare’s The Tempest is thus seen as being in direct conversation with both
Jonson’s The Alchemist, and with the philosophical and artistic trends of the
period. In Chapter Seven, I explore the evidence that Shakespeare was drawing
from a ‘common pool’ of intellectual material with Jonson. However, I also
suggest that Shakespeare presents a differing, though in some ways
complementary, view of self-knowledge. Both Shakespeare and Jonson, I
propose, are drawing on alchemical language and imagery to present
contrasting characterizations of human potential and evolution. In effect, the
respective dramatic texts present two distinct conceptualizations of the
‘philosopher’s stone’, which, in turn, suggests two models of human
perfectibility that seem to be poles apart. These two works, however, are
undeniably related and mutually effective within the Renaissance crucible of
alchemy.
