Literatures of Alchemy in Medieval and Early Modern England.

Author / Editor
Bentick, Eoin.

Title
Literatures of Alchemy in Medieval and Early Modern England.

Published
Rochester, N.Y.: Brewer, 2022.

Physical Description
viii, 213 pp.; illus.

Description
Surveys medieval and early modern study of alchemy and writing about alchemy, with particular attention to its obscurities of language and limited potential for progress. A section called "Playing with Obscurity: Chaucer's Manipulation of the 'Tabula chemica' and the 'Liber de secretis naturae',” treats CYPT as epitomizing "the skeptical rejection of alchemical bombast . . . that could nonetheless be manipulated by those who knew the way around its language"” Considers Chaucer's adaptations of "academic" treatises on alchemy: the "Tabula chemica" and the "Liber de secretis naturae."

Alternative Title
Playing with Obscurity: Chaucer's Manipulation of the "Tabula chemica" and the "Liber de secretis naturae."

Chaucer Subjects
Canon's Yeoman and His Tale
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations