Freie Universität Berlin - Dissertationen Online an der FU Berlin

363 Pages·2012·2.97 MB·English

Freie Universität Berlin
Fachbereich Philosophie und Geisteswissenschaften II
Institut für Philosophie

Theatre and Magic in the Elizabethan Renaissance

Gabriela Dragnea Horvath

Erscheinungsjahr: 2012
GUTACHTER-LISTE

Gutachter 1 Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann

Gutachter 2 Prof. Dr. Anne Eusterschulte

Datum der letzten mündlichen Prüfung (Disputationsdatum): 23.07.2010

2
CONTENTS

Acknowledgements 6
List of Figures 8

1. INTRODUCTION 9
1.1 Motivation of the Conceptual Choice 9
1.2 Semantic Survey: Magic 10
1.3 Semantic Survey: Theatre 12
1.4 Circumscribing the Study Area 14
1.5 The Elizabethan Renaissance 18
1.6 Dr. Dee and Sir Edward Kelly 19
1.7 The State of Art 23
1.8 Interdisciplinarity and Method 25
1.9 Note 29
1.10 Abbreviations 30

2. HISTORICAL PREMISES 31
2.1 Theatre 31
2.1.1 The Medieval Tradition 31
2.1.2 The Italian Models 35
2.1.3 National Comedy and Tragedy 38
2.1.4 Stable Theatres, Playwrights, Actors and the Crown 40
2.1.5 Drama and Elizabethan Life 43

2.2 Magic 45
2.2.1 Magical Practices and Religion 45
2.2.2 Renaissance Magic and Reformation 48
2.2.3 English Contributions 50
2.2.4 The Sovereign Magician 54
2.2.5 James I and Black Magic 55
2.2.6 The Discoverie of Witchcraft 57
2.2.7 Magical Agencies 59
2.2.8 The Popularity of Magic 59
2.2.9 Magic and Literature 61

3. THEORETICAL PREMISES 63
3.1 Difficulties of Approach 63
3.2 Theatre. Conceptual Analysis 64
3.2.1 Aristotelian Mimesis in Shakespeare 65
3.2.2 Nature in Shakespeare 67
3.2.3 Nature, Art and Platonism 70
3.2.4 The World as Theatre. The Theatre as World 75

3.3 Magic. Conceptual Analysis 77
3.3.1 Ancient Sources 77
3.3.2 Tentative Definition 81
3
3.3.3 Magic and Religion 83
3.3.4 Philosophia perennis and Magic 84
3.3.5 Dee and Perennial Philosophy 87

3.4 Common Features of Theatre and Magic 93

4. WONDER IN THEATRE AND MAGIC 97
4.1 The Sense of Wonder 97
4.2 The Marvelous in Theatre 100
4.2.1 Shakespeare on Miracles 101
4.2.2 Shakespeare on Wonder 106
4.2.3 Wonder in Macbeth 107
4.2.4 Wonder in A Midsummer Night's Dream 111
4.2.5 Theatre and Magic in The Tempest 113
4.2.6 Wonder and Amazement in The Tempest 118
4.2.6.1 Wonder, Worship and the Advancement of Learning 118
4.2.6.2 The Monster in the Labyrinth 122
4.2.6.3 The Nobler Reason 126
4.3. Dr. Dee as Wonder Master 129
4.3.1 Monas Hieroglyphica as Instrument of Wonder 129
4.3.2 Interpretations of the Monas Hieroglyphica 134
4.3.3 Angels and Wonders 139
4.3.4 Mysteries 143
4.3.5 Magic and Theatre in the Five Books of Mystery 146
4.4. Continuum and Becoming 151
4.5. Man is the Measure of All Things 153
4.5.1 What a Piece of Work is Man! 153
4.5.2 And Yet to Me What is This Quintessence of Dust? 156
4.6 The Charmed Magician 160
4.7 Good Old Lord Gonzalo 167

5. THE POWER OF WORDS 173
5.1 Word Dynamis 173
5.2 Renaissance, Reformation and Languages of Power 175
5.3 Shakespeare, Dee and Professional Idioms 180
5.3.1 The Transmission of Enochian 184
5.3.2 Quiddities, Names and Paradoxes in Enochian 190
5.3.3 Names and Magical Operations 194
5.3.4 Names in Shakespeare's Magic 199
5.3.5 Naming in Theatre 202
5.3.6 Paradoxes of Language in the Theatre of the World 205
5.3.7. What's in a Name? 209
5.3.8 The Name of King, Man and the Name of Macbeth 215
5.4 Dr. Dee on Name and Fame 219
5.5. Words and Intellectus Intentus 221
5.6 Transcending Language 223
4
5.7 Creation and Command in Theatre and Magic 226
5.7.1. Analogical Thought and Emotions 228
5.7.2. Ludicium in the Language Lab 233

6. THE TEMPTATION OF THE POSSIBLE: VISION AND SPIRITS 241
6.1 Visual Turbulence 241
6.2 Vis imaginativa 247
6.2.1 Such tricks hath strong imagination 250
6.3. Spiritual Beings 255
6.3.1 Semantic Turbulence 260
6.3.2. Spirits and Goals 264
6.3.3 Good and Bad Spirits 266
6.3.4 Angelus Tuae Professionis 269
6.3.5 These our actors ...were all spirits 271
6.3.6 Angels, Spirits and Nature 276
6.3.7 Spirits and the Mind 284
6.3.8. Spirits and Culture 286

7. CONCLUSIONS 294
7.1 Limits and Praises of Interdisciplinarity 294
7.2 Theatre and Magic as Arts of Becoming 297
7.3 Dr. John Dee 302
7.4 Sir Edward Kelly 304
7.4.1 The Question of Authorship 305
7. 5 Dee and Shakespeare 306

8. FIGURES 314
9. APPENDIXES 328
10. BIBLIOGRAPHY 333
11. INDEX 353
12. ABSTRACT – DEUTSCHER SPRACHE 354
13. CURRICULUM VITAE 362

5
Acknowledgements

In fulfilling this doctoral project I have had institutional and personal support I
wish to mention and express my gratitude for. My first thanks go to the Institut für
Philosophie of the Freie Universität Berlin for accepting my dissertation topic to
be treated in English and in a doctoral formula that allowed me to continue my
work and my family life in Florence.

I am deeply grateful to Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann for his
encouragement and patient guiding. His publications, in particular Philosophia
perennis, have been of invaluable help in orienting my research on the
philosophical context of Shakespeare and John Dee. My gratitude goes no less to
Prof. Dr. Anne Eusterschulte for her comprehensive analysis of my thesis, her
criticism and her generous appreciation of its original aspects. I am indebted to
Prof. Dr. Andrew James Johnston for suggestions regarding the general
framework and the critical perspective.

Special thanks to The Oxford University Press for sending me a free copy of
Shakespeare's Complete Works many years ago, when I lived in Bucharest. This
book has accompanied me everywhere in my wanderings and has remained the
reference edition in my studies.

The present research has been carried out attending various libraries. My gratitude
to the staff of the Freie Universität Berlin Library, the Bodleian Library in
Oxford, the Berenson Library at the Villa I Tatti, the Harold Acton Library of the
British Institute in Florence, the Biblioteca Nazionale in Florence. Particular
mention of the librarians April Child (Harold Acton), Una Hanratty (Gonzaga in
Florence), Teresa Mena (Richmond Study Center in Florence), Elena Paolucci
(Florence University of the Arts) for keeping me updated with new prints and
kindly extending my loan periods.

I am also indebted to colleagues and scholars for advice and support, in particular
to Prof. Dr. Patrick Burke, Dean of Gonzaga in Florence for inviting me to
participate in philosophy conferences where I could advance and submit to critical
judgement some of the ideas debated in this work. The group Theater without
Borders, whose conference at New York University in Florence I attended in May
2009, has contributed to refine my conclusions on theatre. I am indebted to all the
participants and in particular to Susan Wofford, Dean of the NYU Gallatin
School, Richard Andrews, M.A. Katrizky and Eric Nicholson. I had the privilege
to meet some of the authors of books that have contributed to my research and
benefit directly from their expertise: Carlo Ginzburg, James Hankins, Stephen
Orgel, Michael Wyatt. Fr. Michael Moynahan, S.J., has kindly provided me with
bibliography on the educational value of theatre at the English College in Rome.

My research depends on ideas and suggestions I have received in many years.
Mark Roberts m.Oxon, librarian at the Harold Acton Library in Florence and a
dear friend, mentioned Dr. Dee to me for the first time years back and
recommended bibliography on his work. Prof. Dr. Mihaela Irimia was my advisor
in Bucharest in a research on ludic aspects of English poetry.
6
Very special thanks to Dr. Alfred Levy and Irmgard Fuchs-Levy for their friendly
support and precious exchange of ideas. I could find peace to write, away from
daily cares in the welcoming seaside flat of my friends Daniela Sachi and Luciano
Capiali, who affectionaly sustained my work together with Hulda Liberanome,
Barbara Cinelli, Franca Celli, Simona Mocali.

A thought of deep gratitude in memoriam for my mother Maria and my father
Gheorghe. I owe enormously to my husband Ladislau and my sons Petru and
Anton who have supported me in any possible way and lovingly accompanied my
efforts.

7
List of Figures

1. John Dee, Monas Hieroglyphica, Front Page of the 1564 edition
2. Monas, Theorem II
3. Monas Hieroglyphica
4. Monas, Theorem X
5. Monas, Cosmic Egg. Theorem XVIII
6. Monas, Metamorphosis of the Egg
7. Monas, Canon of Transposition, Theorem XXIII
8. Enochian Alphabet
9. Table with the Names of God
10. Sigillum Aemeth
11. Dee's coat of arms
12. Samples of Enochian
13. Possible alchemical tables
14. Seals of the Princes Heptarchicall
Figures 1-7 : Material excerpted from the book THE HIEROGLYPHIC MONAD
© 1975 by Samuel Weiser, Inc Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC Newburyport, MA and
San Francisco, CA www.redwheelweiseer.com
Figures 8-10; 12-14 : Material excerpted from the book JOHN DEE’S FIVE
BOOKS OF MYSTERY © 2003 Joseph H. Peterson Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC
Newburyport, MA and San Francisco, CA www.redwheelweiseer.com

Figure 11: Figure 11: Image produced by Proquest as part of Early English
Books Online, excerpted from John Dee, A letter, containing a most briefe
discourse apologeticall with a plaine demonstration, and feruent protestation, for
the lawfull, sincere, very faithfull and Christian course, of the philosophicall
studies and exercises, of a certaine studious gentleman: an ancient seruant to her
most excellent Maiesty royall, 1599, Huntington Library, San Marino,
California, call number RB 53902, p. C3r. Published with permission of
Huntington Library, San Marino, California, and of ProQuest, 789 E.
Eisenhower Parkway, Box 1346, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346USA;
http:/www.proquest.com
8
1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Motivation of the Conceptual Choice

Half a century ago, in his essay Was ist das, die Philosophie? Heidegger pleaded
for the centrality of philosophy in Western culture, acknowledging its seminal role
in the advent of modern science as the actual guardian of reason, die eigentliche
Verwalterin der Ratio1. Modern science, with its unprecedented capacity to
explore the remote outer space as well as the smallest unit of man's inner space,
can prove today how often philosophers have exercised reason on imaginary
worlds they created themselves or took for granted as a matter of belief. In the
chapter A Short History of Imagination, of Philosophia perennis, W. Schmidt
Biggemann discloses the substantial share of fantastical knowledge in the process
of cognition and the history of philosophy2. On the other hand, it is an established
fact that the rise of modern science passed through the imaginative and
experimental phase of natural magic, understood by its Renaissance promoters
either as a necessary part of philosophy, or even as Pico della Mirandola called it
“la filosofia più alta e più divina.”3
To the parentage of science with magic, dealt with in the past decades4, the
encounter of theatrical devices with experiment, nature exploration and
epistemology has been added in recent studies5“, by focusing on perception,
movement and language as main cognition factors:
The skilfully stylised interplay between perception, movement and language is
integral to no other traditional phenomenon as it is to the theatre. Some very
revealing relations are to be found between the positioning of the observer in the

1 M. Heidegger, Was ist das – die Philosophie, Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart, 2003, p.7: English edition
What is Philosophy, transl. with an Introduction by J. T.Wilde, W. Kluback, College and
University Press, New Haven, 1956.
2 W. Schmidt-Biggemann, Philosophia Perennis, Springer, Dordrecht, The Netherlands, 2004, A
Short History of Imagination, pp. 9-21.
3 The Apologia, in P. Zambelli, L'ambigua natura della maggia, Il saggiatore, Milano, 1991,
p.182.
4 Boas, Marie Hall, The Scientific Renaissance, 1450-1630 (The Rise of Modern Science II),
Dover Publications, New York, 1994; Paolo Rossi, Franceso Bacone. Dalla magia alla
scienza, Einaudi, Torino, 1974; I filosofi e le macchine (1400-1700), Feltrinelli, Milano, 1976.
5 Schramm, H., Schwarte L., Lazardzig, Kunstkammer, Laboratorium, Bühne: Schauplätze des
Wissens im 17. Jahrhundert, Walter De Gruyter, Berlin, New York, 2003.
9
representational space of science and the spatio-temporal organisation of seeing,
speaking, and acting in the canon of European theatre forms.” 6

If modern science and phenomenology of cognition have embedded approaches,
forms of representation, procedures and rituals one can trace back both to early
modern theatre and to early modern magic, their convergence and common
features appear as an interesting research area. The first step is to decide which
theatre and which magic to address, as their parallel or intersecting developments
over roughly two centuries, from the outset of the Italian Renaissance till the
Scientific Revolution, resulted in an unprecedented proliferation of cultural forms
and semantic extensions7.

1.2 Semantic Survey: Magic

At the end of the 15th century for Marsilio Ficino there were two kinds of magic:
“the first is practiced by those who unite themselves to daemons by a specific
religious rite, and, relying on their help, often contrive portents” and the second
“practiced by those who seasonably subject natural materials to natural causes to
be formed in a wondruous way.”8 He rejected the former, but supported the latter,
as an attempt “to join medicine with priesthood.”9
A century later, Giordano Bruno identified ten meanings in use of magus
and magia, each of them grouping various subclasses. Magician meant wise man
with a priestly function10, but also diviners who could predict distant or future

6 Ibid., p..XIV.
7 This is a phenomenon specific to Western Europe. In Eastern European Orthodox countries,
theatre as a modern institution in the national language appeared only in the 19th century, in an
effort of synchronization with the West; as for magic, these countries preserved till recently a
sort of archaic popular magic, of the type described by Carlo Ginzburg in The Night Battles.
Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth &Seventeenth Centuries, The John Hopkins
University Press, Baltimore, Maryland 1992. They did not experience the witch hunts, nor did
they have a philosophy that encompassed magic and the successive impulse to develop science
and technology. It is telling that Greece has delivered to the West great part of the
philosophical thought fusing into magic, not to mention the theatre, but neither of the two
flourished in this country after antiquity.
8 Ficino, Marsilio, De Vita Coelitus Comparanda. Libri Tres, engl. Three Books on Life, The
Renaissance Society of America, Tempe, Arizona, 1998, Apology, p. 399.
9 Ibid., p. 397.
10 G.Bruno, Essays on magic, in Cause, principle and unity. Essays on Magic, transl. and ed.
Robert De Lucca and Richard J. Blackwell, Cambridge, UK, New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1998 p.105 “First, the term 'magician' means a wise man; for example, the trismegistes
10