The Alchemist in Literature: From Dante to the Present Book PDF, ePub eBook

Join our eBook service for unlimited books & audiobooks. Get a free 7 day subscription! ↓↓↓↓↓


Book Descriptions:
Unlike most other studies of alchemy and literature, which focus on alchemical imagery in poetry of specific periods or writers, this book traces the figure of the alchemist in Western literature from its first appearance in the Eighth Circle of Dante's Inferno down to the present. From the beginning alchemy has had two aspects: exoteric or operative (the transmutation of baser metals into gold) and esoteric or speculative (the spiritual transformation of the
alchemist himself). From Dante to Ben Jonson, during the centuries when the belief in exoteric alchemy was still strong and exploited by many charlatans to deceive the gullible, writers in major works of many literatures treated alchemists with ridicule in an effort to expose their tricks. From the
Renaissance to the Enlightenment, as that belief weakened, the figure of the alchemist disappeared, even though Protestant poets in England and Germany were still fond of alchemical images. But when eighteenth-century science almost wholly undermined alchemy, the figure of the alchemist began to emerge again in literature—now as a humanitarian hero or as a spirit striving for sublimation. Following these esoteric romanticizations, as scholarly interest in alchemy intensified, writers were
attracted to the figure of the alchemist and his quest for power. The fin-de-siecle saw a further transformation as poets saw in the alchemist a symbol for the poet per se and others, influenced by the prevailing spiritism, as a manifestation of the religious spirit. During the interwar years, as
writers sought surrogates for the widespread loss of religious faith, esoteric alchemy underwent a pronounced revival, and many writers turned to the figure of the alchemist as a spiritual model or, in the case of Paracelsus in Germany, as a national figurehead. This tendency, theorized by C. G. Jung in several major studies, inspired after World War II a vast popularization of the figure in novels—historical, set in the present, or juxtaposing past and present— in England, France, Germany,
Italy, Brazil, and the United States. The inevitable result of this popularization was the trivialization of the figure in advertisements for healing and cooking or in articles about scientists and economists. In sum: the figure of the alchemist in literature provides a seismograph for major shifts in
intellectual and cultural history.

The Alchemist in Literature: From Dante to the Present by Theodore Ziolkowski

From reader reviews:

Paul Weston:

The book The Alchemist in Literature: From Dante to the Present can give more knowledge and also the precise product information about everything you want. Why then must we leave the great thing like a book The Alchemist in Literature: From Dante to the Present? Wide variety you have a different opinion about publication. But one aim that book can give many information for us. It is absolutely appropriate. Right now, try to closer with your book. Knowledge or details that you take for that, it is possible to give for each other; you are able to share all of these. Book The Alchemist in Literature: From Dante to the Present has simple shape nevertheless, you know: it has great and massive function for you. You can appear the enormous world by wide open and read a book. So it is very wonderful.

Richard Swisher:

What do you regarding book? It is not important with you? Or just adding material when you really need something to explain what yours problem? How about your extra time? Or are you busy man or woman? If you don't have spare time to perform others business, it is gives you the sense of being bored faster. And you have time? What did you do? Every person has many questions above. They need to answer that question due to the fact just their can do which. It said that about reserve. Book is familiar in each person. Yes, it is appropriate. Because start from on jardín de infancia until university need this The Alchemist in Literature: From Dante to the Present to read.

Doreen Williams:

Information is provisions for people to get better life, information currently can get by anyone from everywhere. The information can be a knowledge or any news even a problem. What people must be consider when those information which is inside the former life are challenging be find than now's taking seriously which one is acceptable to believe or which one typically the resource are convinced. If you find the unstable resource then you have it as your main information we will see huge disadvantage for you. All of those possibilities will not happen within you if you take The Alchemist in Literature: From Dante to the Present as the daily resource information.

Bernard Davisson:

The e-book with title The Alchemist in Literature: From Dante to the Present includes a lot of information that you can learn it. You can get a lot of advantage after read this book. This specific book exist new information the information that exist in this reserve represented the condition of the world currently. That is important to yo7u to be aware of how the improvement of the world. This specific book will bring you in new era of the globalization. You can read the e-book with your smart phone, so you can read it anywhere you want.