Renaissance Magic and the Return of the Golden Age: The Occult Tradition and Marlowe, Jonson, and Shakespeare

333 Pages·1992·63.785 MB·English

by  John S. Mebane

Renaissance Magic
and the Return
of the Golden Age
The Occult
Tradition
and Marlowe,
Jonson, and
Shalcespeare
John S.
~ebane
University of
Nebraska Press
Lincoln & London
0
~ :L. c.(
MLf- 8 S-re._
Acknowledgments for the use of previously
published material appear on page xv.
Copyright C> 1989 by the University
of Nebraska Press
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the
United States of America
The paper in this book meets
the minimum requirements of
American National Standard
for Information Sciences--Pennanence
of Paper for Printed Library Materials,
z39.48-1984.
ANSI
Library of Congress
Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mebane, John S., 1946-
Renaissance magic and the
return of the Golden Age : the occult
tradition and Marlowe, Jonson, and
Shakespeare I John S. Mebane.
P· cm.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
0-8032-3133-4 (alk. paper)
ISBN
1. English drama-Early modern and
Elizabethan, 1500-16oo History and criticism.
2. English drama-1?th century-
History and criticism. 3. Occultism
in literature. 4. Magic in literature.
5. Golden age (Mythology) in
literature. 6. Marlowe, Christopher,
1564-1593. Doctor Faustus.
7. Jonson, Ben, 1573?-1637. Alchemist.
8. Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616.
Tempest. 9. Renaissance-England. I. Title.
PR658.03M43 1989
822'.3'093?-dc19 88-22o68
CIP
To tAe memory ofm y pamats,
John Harrison Mebane
and
Hannah Price Kallam Mebane

Contents
List of Illustrations
IX
Preface
XI
A Note on Texts, Translations, and Illustrations
XVll
Renaissance Magic and the Return
I
of the Golden Age
I
2 Art and Magic in the Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino 22
Pico della Mirandola: Christian Cabala, Theurgy,
3
and Universal Reformation 36
Cornelius Agrippa and the Dissemination of
4
Renaissance Magic
53
Magic, Science, and Witchcraft in Renaissance
England
73
6 Vision and Illusion in Marlowe's Dr. Faustus 113
The Renaissance Magus as Mock-Hero:
7
Utopianism and Religious Enthusiasm in Ben
Jonson's The Alchemist 137
8 Neoclassicism and the Scientific Frame of Mind:
Ben Jonson and "Mystick Symboles" 156
9 Magic as Love and Faith: Shakespeare's The Tempest 174
Epilogue 200
Notes 203
Bibliography 250
Index 297
vu

Illustrations
following page
11 o
of
Title page of Robert Recorde's Tlie Castle I<.nowletlge
1
John Dee
2
3 Title page of John Dee's Monas Hieroglyp/Uca
of
4 Title page of Tlie Tragical History Doctor Faustus, 163 1
s
Rembrandt, Dr. Faustus, sometimes called Tlie Inspired Sclwlar
6 Peter Bruegel the Elder, Tlie AlcAemists
7 William Hamilton, Tlie Winter's Tale, act 5, scene 3:
"If this be magic, let it be an art I Lawful as eating?'
8 Frontispiece to Nicholas Rowe's edition of Tlie Tempest, 1709
9 John Gilbert, Tlie Tempest, act scene Prospero,
1, 2:
Miranda, and Caliban
lX

Preface
T!Us
stutly is founded on the premise that literature, history, and
philosophy must forge interrelationships which are symbiotic rather
than predatory. One of its major purposes is to construct for Renais
sance plays on magic a more detailed and genuinely illuminating
historical context than has previously been provided; at the same
time, I have avoided treating the plays purely as historical allegories
or simple ideological statements, seeking instead to explore the
dramatists' responses to historical and philosophical currents in a
manner which enhances our awareness of the plays' artistic sophis
tication. Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, and William Shake
speare were thoroughly familiar with the symbolic importance of
occult philosophy in the intellectual history of their own era, and the
opening chapters provide information which deepens our under
standing of the moral, philosophical, social, and political issues to
which the playwrights were responding. Simultaneously, the earlier
chapters are ends in themselves, and the book as a whole traces a
historical movement from its roots in civic humanism through a pro
cess of radical development in the Hermetic/Cabalist tradition to its
culmination in the birth of scienee and in attempts to promote radical
social and religious reform. In addition to seeking to enhance our
appreciation of Renaissance plays in purely aesthetic terms, the
study as a whole is intended to reassess our current understanding
of ethical and philosophical issues which are central to the Renais
sance and which have contributed to the development of modem
values and institutions.
A complete theoretical defense of my attempt to reconstruct the
mental outlook, values, and emotions of Renaissance philosophers
X1
Preface
and playwrights, as well as their manipulation of reader or audience
response, is obviously far beyond the scope of this preface. I would
like to emphasize, however, that in general I concur with the central
arguments of Wayne Booth's sagacious book Critical Understanding:
of
Tlie Powers and Limits Pluralism. I would, perhaps, go somewhat
further than Booth in stressing that different kinds of critical en
deavor may be valid, even when they seem to arrive at conflicting,
rather than complementary, interpretations of the same texts. This is
not to assert that all interpretations are of equal standing, nor to
abandon entirely the quest for a degree of objectivity; it is simply to
admit that knowledge is contingent upon the contexts in which inter
pretation occurs, and there are practical as well as theoretical reasons
why none of us can claim to have arrived at certainty. One of the
central challenges of contemporary humanistic study is the problem
of maintaining a generous tolerance while, at the same time, respect
ing canons of evidence and striving to refine our criteria of truth. As
I reflect upon this study after its completion, I feel the need to em
phasize in this preface that the rival interpretations which I have
discussed in most detail in this book-including those whose theo
retical assumptions differ from my own-are typically those which I
have found to be the most challenging possible alternatives to the
readings presented in the following chapters. Because of the scope
of the study it has been difficult to represent in the notes the full
range of opinion on the texts and problems which I have discussed,
and I have therefore included in the Bibliography a number of addi
tional important studies.
While I cannot accept entirely E. D. Hirsch's assertion that the
only valid critical endeavor is the attempt to reconstruct the meaning
intended by the author, there is nonetheless a great deal in the work
of Hirsch, Booth, and others which suggests that there are sound
methodologies for making an informed inquiry concerning what an
author may have wished to communicate. In the present study my
own interests have frequently centered upon the manner in which
various authors-philosophers and scientists, as well as drama
tists-have struggled to express their own visions and/or to affirm
their own values while responding to the constraints imposed by
their audiences, by censorship, and by numerous other factors. In
some cases, as in the study of Jonson's masques (which are some
times annotated in detail by the author himself), we have access to a
..
Xll