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The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age ‘She has raised questions which will occupy scholars for decades to come.... It is a very great book. A crowning achievement, one might say.’ Christopher Hill ‘Among those who have explored the intellectual world of the sixteenth century, no one can rival Frances Yates. Wherever she looks, she illuminates.... No one has done more than she to recreate, from unexpected material, the intellectual life of past ages.’ Hugh Trevor-Roper Frances Ya t es The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age London and New York First published 1979 by Routledge & Kegan Paul Reprinted as volume VII of The Selected Works of Frances Yates 1999 First published in Routledge Classics 2001 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004. © 1979 Frances A. Yates All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been applied for ISBN 0-203-16711-2 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-26188-7 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0–415–25409–4 (Print Edition) CONTENTS List of illustrations vii Preface ix Introduction 1 PART I The Occult Philosophy in Renaissance and Reformation 1 Medieval Christian Cabala: The Art of Ramon Lull 11 2 The Occult Philosophy in the Italian Renaissance: Pico della Mirandola 19 3 The Occult Philosophy in the Reformation: Johannes Reuchlin 27 4 The Cabalist Friar of Venice: Francesco Giorgi 33 5 The Occult Philosophy and Magic: Henry Cornelius Agrippa 43 6 The Occult Philosophy and Melancholy: Dürer and Agrippa 57 7 Reactions against the Occult Philosophy: the Witch Craze 71 vi contents PART II The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age Introduction 87 8 John Dee: Christian Cabalist 92 9 Spenser’s Neoplatonism and the Occult Philosophy: John Dee and The Faerie Queene 111 10 Elizabethan England and the Jews 128 11 The Reaction: Christopher Marlowe on Conjurors, Imperialists and Jews 135 12 Shakespeare and Christian Cabala: Francesco Giorgi and The Merchant of Venice 148 13 Agrippa and Elizabethan Melancholy: George Chapman’s Shadow of Night 157 14 Shakespearean Fairies, Witches, Melancholy: King Lear and the Demons 172 15 Prospero: The Shakespearean Magus 186 PART III The Occult Philosophy and Rosicrucianism and Puritanism. The Return of the Jews to England Introduction 195 16 Christian Cabala and Rosicrucianism197 17 The Occult Philosophy and Puritanism: John Milton 206 18 The Return of the Jews to England 213 Epilogue 219 Notes 223 Index 245 ILLUSTRATIONS PLATES (between pp. 116–17) 1 Gentile, Jew, Moslem, and Christian under the Trees of the Lullian Art. Illustration to Ramon Lull, Liber de gentili et tribus sapientibus (written 1274 in Arabic), in Lull, Opera omnia, Mainz, 1721–42 (Warburg Institute Photographic Collection) 2 The Tetragrammaton and the Name of Jesus. Page from Johannes Reuchlin, De verbo mirifico (1494), edition of Lyons, 1552 (Warburg Institute Library) 3 The Tetragrammaton and the Name of Jesus. Page from Francesco Giorgi, De harmonia mundi, Venice, 1525 (Warburg Institute Library) 4 Numerological relationships between the Three Worlds. Diagram illus- trating discourse by Nicolas Le Fèvre de la Boderie in Francesco Giorgi, L’Harmonie du monde (French translation by Guy Le Fèvre de la Boderie of De harmonia mundi), Paris, 1578 (British Library 698. f. 17) 5 Albrecht Dürer, Melencolia I, engraving, 1514 (Warburg Institute Photographic Collection) 6 Albrecht Dürer, St Jerome, engraving, 1514 (Warburg Institute Photographic Collection) 7 Lucas Cranach, The Melancholy Witch, painting, 1528 (Private Collec- tion; photo by National Gallery of Scotland) viii illustrations 8 Francesco Giorgi, De harmonia mundi, Venice, 1525 (British Library, 7.b.3). Title-page, with note by the censor that the work abounds in arguments of Platonists and Cabalists and is therefore to be read with caution 9 Francesco Giorgi, De harmonia mundi, Venice, 1525. Page showing deletions by the censor (British Library 7.b.3) 10 John Dee, Monas hieroglyphica, 1564, title-page (Warburg Institute Photographic Collection) 11 John Dee, General and rare memorials, 1577, title-page (British Library 48.h.18) 12 Dee and his Enemies. Title-page of Dee’s Letter addressed to the Archbishop of Canterbury, 1604 (written earlier) (British Library, C.21.b.25 (3)) 13 Faustus conjuring a Devil. Title-page of Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus, edition of 1620 (British Library C.39.c.26) 14 Matthias Gerung, Melancolia, painting, 1558 (Karlsruhe, Staatliche Kunsthalle) 15 William Shakespeare, memorial bust, Stratford-on-Avon (National Monuments Record) 16 Rembrandt, The Inspired Scholar, etching, c. 1651–3 (British Museum, Department of Prints and Manuscripts) FIGURE The Sephirothic Tree p. 153 PREFACE This book has been difficult to write. It was necessary to find an order for the exposition, and, as soon as I began to work on it, about 1975, it became clear that there must be a first part on the history of Christian Cabala, as introduction to the study of the occult philosophy in the Elizabethan age. When this was achieved, the later parts of the book expanded in new directions, some of them quite unexpected by myself. The result is, I hope, a readable exposition of certain trends and movements hitherto quite unexplored in relation to the Elizabethan age, its philo- sophy, and its poetry. It is only a first attempt at tackling a problem which will take years of further work and thought to solve. I began to write drafts for chapters of the book in 1975, continuing through 1976 to 1978. The oldest part of the book, that is to say the point on which I first began to work and think, is the chapter on George Chapman’s Shadow of Night and the inspired melancholy, as depicted in Dürer’s famous Melencolia I engraving. The thought that Dürer’s imagery might help to solve x preface the Chapman mystery came to me in 1949 when I was asked by Fritz Saxl to assist with the preparation of the new edition of Saturn and Melancholy by Klibansky, Saxl and Panofsky. In this way, I became familiar with the arguments and illustrations of this book long before it was published in 1964. Saxl suggested that I should write something on Elizabethan melancholy for inclu- sion in the book. This essay became much too long and detailed for incorporation in the book and it has remained in my files unpublished, though I used part of it as the basis of an (unpublished) lecture on ‘Chapman and Melancholy’ given in the symposium on Chapman organised by Donald Gordon at Reading University in 1952. Though very different from the argument on Dürer and Chapman developed in the present book, this early lecture, for me, links the present work with the period of my early Warburgian studies under the original members of the Warburg Institute, Saxl and his group. It is my hope that the new approach to Saturn and Melancholy through the Hermetic– Cabalist tradition which is attempted in this book may perhaps eventually help to connect the early Warburgian studies with those of later scholars connected with the Institute. In January 1977 I gave a lecture to the Society for Italian Studies on ‘Elizabethan Neoplatonism Reconsidered: Spenser and Francesco Giorgi’. This lecture was published by the Society for circulation among members only. With some alterations and revisions, it forms the basis of the chapter on ‘Spenser’s Neo- platonism and the Occult Philosophy: John Dee and The Faerie Queene’. I am indebted to the Secretary of the Society for per- mission to reprint it. Apart from this one chapter, the whole of this book is newly written. No other part of it has been printed elsewhere. This book obviously owes a very great debt of gratitude to the work of Gershom Scholem, without which it could not have been written. The influence of the late Chaim Wirszubski was very important. There were useful discussions with Raphael preface xi Loewe. David Goldstein made valuable corrections. Conversa- tions which I had with Isaiah Schachar not long before his death, though not directly about my work, were subtly relevant. In the summer of 1976, Daniel Banes called and left with me his extra- ordinary edition of The Merchant of Venice, an event which I record here with gratitude. My friends and colleagues of the Warburg Institute have, as always, been my support, but I want here to emphasise strongly that the responsibility for the book, and for its daring argu- ments, rests upon myself alone. Other friends to whom I am deeply grateful are Sheila McIlwraith who encouraged me in a dark hour and gave valuable advice about the revision of the typescript, and Joanna Harvey Ross whose support has enabled me to carry on in the face of considerable difficulties. For assistance in assembling the material for the illustrations, I am indebted to Jennifer Montague and Elizabeth McGrath. For their kind permission to reproduce works of art and printed material in their collections I am indebted to the Librarian of the British Library; the Warburg Institute; the Deputy Keeper of the Department of Prints and Manuscripts, British Museum; the National Monuments Record; The National Gallery of Scotland; and the Curator of the Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe.
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