Saving Perfection from the Alchemists: Shakespeare’s Use of Alchemy

In this chapter devoted to the “abstract riddles” of alchemy (Ben Jonson, The Alchemist , 2.1.104), Margaret Jones-Davies argues that Shakespeare uses the poetics of alchemy at a time when it begins to be on the wane as a “science.” Perfecting nature was the aim of alchemy. But in the Renaissance, the literal reading of the power of alchemy was being questioned (Rabelais, Erasmus, Jonson…). And yet, Jones-Davies explains that no matter how cruel the satire, but also the persecutions, against some alchemists had become, the influence of alchemy remained active on a figurative level as hermetic philosophy came to acquire a political importance as the basis of a new religious language, freed from the fanaticism of the warring parties. Now, however much Shakespeare shared Rabelais’ and Erasmus’ irony against alchemical lore, he did not extend his scepticism to the ideal of perfection, which he expressed through alchemical imagery and numerology, more particularly in the Histories and the Romances. Alchemy doesn’t work miracles, Jones-Davies notes, but by lending its language to the ideal of perfection, it certainly creates wonder. Shakespeare