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Angela Chung UC Riverside UC Riverside Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Children of Alchemy: (Un)Covering the Significance of the Hermetic Art in Literary Texts, East and West Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1xg0c146 Author Chung, Angela Ann Chi Publication Date 2013 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE Children of Alchemy: (Un)Covering the Significance of the Hermetic Art in Literary Texts, East and West A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature by Angela Ann Chi Chung December 2013 Dissertation Committee: Dr. Yenna Wu, Chairperson Dr. George Haggerty Dr. Sabine Doran Copyright by Angela Ann Chi Chung 2013 The Dissertation of Angela Ann Chi Chung is approved: Committee Chairperson University of California, Riverside Acknowledgments I am indebted to Professor Yenna Wu who supported me and this project from the very beginning and who first directed me to the connection between The Journey to the West and alchemy and then urged me to explore this further, despite my initial reservations. I am also indebted to Professor George Haggerty who shared so many of his insights into Gothic Literature with me and was always so receptive to my ideas relating to this project and beyond. I can never thank Professor Sabine Doran enough for her readiness to assist me at the eleventh hour and her confidence in my work. I am also grateful to Professor Jeffrey Sacks without whom the section on Freud would not have been possible. I would also like to thank Professor Stephanie Hammer who not only shared so many perspectives relating to German Romanticism but also her teaching experiences with me, both of which played a great part in the inception of this project. My deepest thanks go to Professor Johannes Endres who played such an immense role in the initial formulation of this project and who inspired me in so many ways; without his invaluable guidance and encouragement, the chapters relating to German Romanticism in this work could not have been written. I must also mention the kind staff in the Interlibrary Loans Services at the Tomás Rivera Library, especially Ms. Esther Arroyo, Ms. Janet Moores, and Ms. Maria Mendoza, all of whom always went above and beyond the call of duty to ensure that I was always provided with the materials I needed in the most timely of ways. iv My gratitude also extends to the friends I made while at UCR. Particular thanks go to Sue Hertzog and Wen-Ling Tung both of whom provided me with unwavering encouragement before and during the writing process, as well as Susannah Copi, who made sure to touch base with me regularly during the writing process to make sure I got some fresh air every once in a while. I also wish to thank my friends, the Delphinians, for their continued belief in me and for checking in periodically to see how I was getting along. Special thanks must go to my new friend Daymon Ward who ensured that I had at least one good laugh a day, sometimes even more! I am deeply grateful to my parents, Dr. and Mrs. E. Chung, for without their love and support this project would never have been possible. I remember with the utmost fondness the times when my father told me stories of the Monkey King and his marvelous adventures when I was a little girl at bedtime and I am certain that the idea for this project must have taken root and blossomed from that early time. Last but certainly not least, I would like to express my gratitude to Adrian Li for his unconditional patience, encouragement, and opinions wherever and whenever they were needed. v Dedication To my parents for their encouragement, support, and patience vi ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Children of Alchemy: (Un)Covering the Significance of the Hermetic Art in Literary Texts, East and West by Angela Ann Chi Chung Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Program in Comparative Literature University of California, Riverside, December 2013 Dr. Yenna Wu, Chairperson If hermetic texts are inherently “intertextual” as David Meakin has stated, then literary works referencing alchemy might also contain this same “intertextuality.” Reading such literary works together with alchemical texts would thus appear to be a fruitful endeavor. The significance of alchemy on literary works, however, has rarely been discussed, likely because a working knowledge of the hermetic art is required before undertaking any comprehensive analysis. The aim of this work is therefore to closely read several literary texts with the “will” to interpret them in what Karen Pinkus has termed a decidedly “alchemical key.” The texts chosen falls into two general categories. First, texts that refer to alchemy explicitly: The Journey to the West, E. T. A. Hoffmann’s “The Golden Pot,” and William Godwin’s St. Leon: A Tale of the Sixteenth Century. Our investigation here will reveal that the extent of alchemy’s significance in these texts would be lost to a reader who is not familiar with the alchemical tradition. Second, texts that do not refer to vii alchemy at all but, as we shall see, are in fact extremely alchemical: Ludwig Tieck’s “The Runenberg,” Hoffmann’s “The Mines of Falun,” Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and Sigmund Freud’s Totem and Taboo. The analysis undertaken indicates that literary texts referencing alchemy appear to become “intertextual” once they refer to the hermetic art. To read such texts with knowledge of alchemy will both assist in an expanded understanding of the texts and also enrich the current scholarship. Knowledge of alchemy may, therefore, be useful for further explications of other texts containing hermetic references. Finally, we will discover that it is possible to take a comparative approach with respect to such disparate texts from the Chinese, English and German traditions, as all use one common alchemical idea to comment on the human condition, namely: the figure of the homunculus. viii Table of Contents Acknowledgments.............................................................................................................. iv Dedication.......................................................................................................................... vi Chapter I Introduction: Reading Alchemically and Our Prima Materia............................ 1 Chapter II The Role of Chinese External Alchemy in The Journey to the West .............. 20 Refining and Purifying a Monkey Created by Stone............................................ 24 The Quest for Immortality and the Production of Alchemical Elixirs.................. 30 The Monkey as Elixir............................................................................................ 39 Chapter III The Golden Pot: E. T. A. Hoffmann’s Very Alchemical P(l)ot..................... 47 The Master-Alchemist and his Student-Adept...................................................... 52 Some Requirements for Success in the Hermetic Art........................................... 59 The Wondrously Hermetic Archivist.................................................................... 65 The Final Test by Fire and the Creation of the Philosopher’s Stone.................... 70 The Alchemical Genius......................................................................................... 76 Atlantis, an Alchemical Representation of the Golden Age and Hermetic Cosmology ............................................................................................................ 81 Chapter IV The (Secret) Alchemies of Tieck’s The Runenberg and E. T. A. Hoffmann’s The Mines of Falun ......................................................................................................... 100 The Call of the Mountain.................................................................................... 100 ix The Lure of the Mine .......................................................................................... 115 The Permanency of (the Philosopher’s) Stone.................................................... 140 Chapter V Alchemists and Scientists, and Alchemy by Way of Omission .................... 146 Godwin’s St. Leon: An Alchemical Allegory of the Sixteenth Century............. 147 Mary Shelley’s Victor Frankenstein: Scientist or Alchemist?............................ 166 Speculations on the (Ab)Sense of Alchemy in Freud’s Totem and Taboo......... 190 Conclusion: Ultima Materia ........................................................................................... 211 Homunculi, the Children of Alchemy................................................................. 220 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 239 x Chapter I Introduction: Reading Alchemically and Our Prima Materia Although in the foreword to his alchemical manual, Opus Mago-Cabbalisticum et Theosophicum, Georg von Welling apologizes for using “alchemical symbols, terms and phrasings,” he nevertheless excuses himself by pointing out that they would be easily “decipher[able] for those experienced in such things”.1 While this may be true for the philosophus adeptus (that is, the philosophical adept, or adept, for short), as “those [who are] experienced” were called, it is also true that many did not possess the requisite knowledge.2 Indeed, it is difficult to see how a reader without any knowledge of the hermetic art, the other name by which alchemy was
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