Shakespeare, Alchemy and the Creative Imagination
The Sonnets and A Lover's Complaint
£39.99
- Author: Margaret Healy, University of Sussex
- Date Published: July 2014
- availability: Available
- format: Paperback
- isbn: 9781107637740
£
39.99
Paperback
Other available formats:
Hardback, eBook
Looking for an inspection copy?
This title is not currently available on inspection
-
Shakespeare's sonnets and A Lover's Complaint constitute a rich tapestry of rhetorical play about Renaissance love in all its guises. A significant strand of this spiritual alchemy is working the 'metal' of the mind through meditation on love, memory work and intense imagination. Healy demonstrates how this process of anguished soul work - construed as essential to inspired poetic making - is woven into these poems, accounting for their most enigmatic imagery and urgency of tone. The esoteric philosophy of late Renaissance Neoplatonic alchemy, which embraced bawdy sexual symbolism and was highly fashionable in European intellectual circles, facilitated Shakespeare's poetry. Arguing that Shakespeare's incorporation of alchemical textures throughout his late works is indicative of an artistic stance promoting religious toleration and unity, this book sets out a crucial new framework for interpreting the 1609 poems and transforms our understanding of Shakespeare's art.
Read more- Proposes a new understanding of Shakespeare sonnets and A Lover's Complaint, seeing them as linked inner dramas about the creative mind
- Clearly explains fashionable late Renaissance alchemy and its role in creative writing
- Positions Shakespeare as an artist of religious toleration and unity, opening a new window of understanding onto Shakespeare's beliefs
Customer reviews
Not yet reviewed
Be the first to review
Review was not posted due to profanity
×Product details
- Date Published: July 2014
- format: Paperback
- isbn: 9781107637740
- length: 272 pages
- dimensions: 229 x 152 x 15 mm
- weight: 0.37kg
- contains: 9 b/w illus.
- availability: Available
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. Alchemical contexts
2. Lovely boy
3. The Dark Mistress and the art of blackness
4. A Lover's Complaint by William Shakespeare
5. Inner looking, alchemy and the creative imagination
6. Conclusion: Shakespeare's poetics of love and religious toleration.
Sorry, this resource is locked
Please register or sign in to request access. If you are having problems accessing these resources please email lecturers@cambridge.org
Register Sign in» Proceed
You are now leaving the Cambridge University Press website. Your eBook purchase and download will be completed by our partner www.ebooks.com. Please see the permission section of the www.ebooks.com catalogue page for details of the print & copy limits on our eBooks.
Continue ×Are you sure you want to delete your account?
This cannot be undone.
Thank you for your feedback which will help us improve our service.
If you requested a response, we will make sure to get back to you shortly.
×