Darke Hierogliphicks: Alchemy in English Literature from Chaucer to the Restoration.

Stanton J. Linden. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1996. x + 373 pp. $45. ISBN: 0-8131-1968-5.

The title of Linden's study of the influence of alchemy in English literature is based on a phrase coined by Patrick Scot in his Tillage of Light (1623) to suggest the tendency of alchemical discourse to obfuscate its message. Linden finds the effort to explain "the unknown by the more unknown" (ignotum per ignocius) (33) to be a key part of the alchemical tradition, and one that was a key target of the literary tradition of satirical attacks on alchemy and alchemists that in England he traces back to Chaucer. From Chaucer to Samuel Butler's Hudibras, Linden presents a rich sampling of English literature and how "the artistic imagination seizes upon a body of knowledge that is rich and varied in literary potential and shapes it for its own special purposes" (1). Linden finds that the success of literature in incorporating alchemy depended more on the author's use of alchemical allusions as a vehicle for a deep knowledge of human nature than it did on the extent of the author's knowledge of alchemical lore.

While satire of alchemical charlatanry, the false promises of transmutation, and the peculiar terminology of the art is the chief matter of the literary treatment of alchemy from Chaucer through Ben Jonson's The Alchemist and Mercury Vindicated from the Alchemists at Court in the seventeenth century, which comprises the bulk of this study, the literary use of alchemical themes becomes more varied, serious, and less exclusively critical without entirely dropping the satirical facet. Linden attributes some of this to Francis Bacon taking seriously the subject of alchemy and the possibility of transmutation provided that they be thoroughly reformed. What also emerges as significant in the seventeenth century are the growing influence of Paracelsian medicine and iatrochemistry, and the central place of alchemy in spiritualistic cosmologies embodying ideas of human redemption and eschatology. Besides the satirical theme, Donne's poetry drops much of alchemy's negative connotation and uses it as a rich source of metaphor, often with a clear Paracelsian basis, for a wide range of positive qualities. Linden suggests that Thomas Vaughan and Milton reflect the important role of hermetic philosophical concerns with Divine creation, human salvation, and the fate of the world that often were rooted in an alchemical conception of creation. This more serious consideration of alchemy was undermined in the later seventeenth century as alchemy fell victim to a broad attack on "enthusiasm" carried out by proponents of the new science as well as those who looked back on the excesses of the civil war period with apprehension, a change of attitude reflected in Butler's Hudibras.

Linden provides historical background in an introductory chapter on alchemy, one on Francis Bacons proposals for reforming "vulcan," and sections on alchemical allegory and eschatology, and on Restoration attacks on "enthusiasm." While useful and interesting, these might not be quite enough if this book's audience has not closely followed the history and philosophy of science. A considerable amount of the material that Linden draws upon relates to Paracelsian ideas, iatrochemistry, and the medical debates of the seventeenth century and their social context, which could benefit from a less casual presentation for the non-historian of science. Further, the triumph of the "new science" presented as the framework for the historic trajectory of alchemy in literature, has come under considerable attack, which should invite further study and alternative proposals on the patterns of the literary uses of alchemy in early modern England.

NICHOLAS H. CLULEE Frostburg State University