“An Eco-Alchemical Vision: Hermetic Writing in Twentieth-Century British Literature” examines the intersection of alchemical thinking with contemporary green discourses. This project focuses on four writers from the last century: W. B. Yeats, Charles Williams, Lindsay Clarke, and Patrick Harpur. It considers a wide selection of their writing across literary genres, including the novel, the short story, the essay and poetry. While each of the texts under consideration figures the relationship between the human and the nonhuman world in different ways, reading them alongside one another reveals a shared preoccupation with the status of the material world. For these writers, the alchemical tradition offers a way of both speaking and thinking about physical phenomena that affirms our complex entanglement with materiality. Like the medieval and Renaissance alchemists, all four writers seek to disrupt the rigidity of the boundaries often erected between what dominant modes of thinking in the Western philosophic tradition have categorized as organic and inorganic. My analysis of each writer will draw out how the material is represented in their literary work, and what we might gain from reading their work ecocritically. There are thus three converging lines of inquiry that will frame this project: first, how does this minor current of what I am describing as “eco-alchemical” fiction and poetry fit within larger movements in twentieth-century British literature; second, how do these four figures recuperate alchemical thinking for twentieth-century and contemporary audiences; and third, what does this contribute to the current field of ecocriticism.

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Este estudo tem como objetivo investigar a obra completa de Raduan Nassar e analisar de que forma a vertigem, a desmedida e o excesso inerentes ao erotismo moldam sua prosa. Essa obra ficcional encena, de variadas maneiras, a impossibilidade da verdade perante a pletora de possibilidades da palavra. Em geral, o embate entre as personagens ganha em complexidade quando um dos disputantes é também o dono da voz, apegado ao privilégio de transmitir sua visão única dos fatos. Na tensão entre uma apologia da destruição irrestrita da verdade e a defesa feroz da própria fala, reside uma afirmação categórica da virilidade do narrador, que é, na maior parte das vezes, realizada de forma violenta. Se isso acontece, talvez seja porque se trata, quase sempre, de uma virilidade à beira de um colapso e, se assim o for, potencializada tanto pela intensidade quanto pela precariedade. Essa hipótese ganha fôlego quando nos lembramos de que os confrontos entre o feminino e o masculino compõem um dos eixos da ficção de Nassar, não raro fortemente erotizada. A poética de Raduan Nassar esforça-se em ocultar o referente contextual e fazer o leitor perder-se em seu labirinto textual de pistas falsas ou bem guardadas. Daí a voracidade e a maneira em geral dissimulada com que se serve de textos tão distintos como os da Bíblia, do Alcorão, dos mitos gregos, da filosofia, da tradição hermético-alquímica, da literatura. Poética que opta por um caminho subterrâneo, sinuoso e indireto, entre a realidade e a ficção, e que leva em conta o fato de todas as questões humanas trazerem, sob a máscara da linguagem e o disfarce do cinismo, um componente fundamental de luta pelo poder e de controle de corpos. / This study aims to investigate how vertigo, lack of limits and excess intrinsic to eroticism shape Raduan Nassars prose in his complete works. In many senses, his fictional oeuvre stages the impossibility of truth before the plethora of written word possibilities. In general, the conflict amongst character has its complexity enhanced when one of them is also the one who speaks, compromised with the privilege of transmitting his or her single view of the facts. In the tension of an apology of unrestrained destruction of truth against the fierce defense of his or her speech itself lies a categorical statement of the narrators virility, which is, in most cases, carried out with violence. If that happens, it may be often due to a virility on the verge of collapse and, if so, empowered by both intensity and precariousness. This hypothesis is reinforced by the battle between feminine and masculine, often highly eroticized, which is one of the axes of Nassar fiction. Raduan Nassars poetics strive to hide the contextual referent and make the reader lose himself in its textual maze of false or shadowy tracks. That is the origin of the voracity and the stealthy way in which it alludes to texts as varied as the Bible, the Koran, Greek myths, philosophy, hermetic-alchemical tradition and literature. It regards the election of an underground, winding and oblique way between reality and fiction, and takes into account the fact that all human affairs bring as a key component, under the mask of language and the guise of cynicism, the struggle for power and the control of the body.

Este estudo tem como objetivo investigar a obra completa de Raduan Nassar e analisar de que forma a vertigem, a desmedida e o excesso inerentes ao erotismo moldam sua prosa. Essa obra ficcional encena, de variadas maneiras, a impossibilidade da verdade perante a pletora de possibilidades da palavra. Em geral, o embate entre as personagens ganha em complexidade quando um dos disputantes é também o dono da voz, apegado ao privilégio de transmitir sua visão única dos fatos. Na tensão entre uma apologia da destruição irrestrita da verdade e a defesa feroz da própria fala, reside uma afirmação categórica da virilidade do narrador, que é, na maior parte das vezes, realizada de forma violenta. Se isso acontece, talvez seja porque se trata, quase sempre, de uma virilidade à beira de um colapso e, se assim o for, potencializada tanto pela intensidade quanto pela precariedade. Essa hipótese ganha fôlego quando nos lembramos de que os confrontos entre o feminino e o masculino compõem um dos eixos da ficção de Nassar, não raro fortemente erotizada. A poética de Raduan Nassar esforça-se em ocultar o referente contextual e fazer o leitor perder-se em seu labirinto textual de pistas falsas ou bem guardadas. Daí a voracidade e a maneira em geral dissimulada com que se serve de textos tão distintos como os da Bíblia, do Alcorão, dos mitos gregos, da filosofia, da tradição hermético-alquímica, da literatura. Poética que opta por um caminho subterrâneo, sinuoso e indireto, entre a realidade e a ficção, e que leva em conta o fato de todas as questões humanas trazerem, sob a máscara da linguagem e o disfarce do cinismo, um componente fundamental de luta pelo poder e de controle de corpos. / This study aims to investigate how vertigo, lack of limits and excess intrinsic to eroticism shape Raduan Nassars prose in his complete works. In many senses, his fictional oeuvre stages the impossibility of truth before the plethora of written word possibilities. In general, the conflict amongst character has its complexity enhanced when one of them is also the one who speaks, compromised with the privilege of transmitting his or her single view of the facts. In the tension of an apology of unrestrained destruction of truth against the fierce defense of his or her speech itself lies a categorical statement of the narrators virility, which is, in most cases, carried out with violence. If that happens, it may be often due to a virility on the verge of collapse and, if so, empowered by both intensity and precariousness. This hypothesis is reinforced by the battle between feminine and masculine, often highly eroticized, which is one of the axes of Nassar fiction. Raduan Nassars poetics strive to hide the contextual referent and make the reader lose himself in its textual maze of false or shadowy tracks. That is the origin of the voracity and the stealthy way in which it alludes to texts as varied as the Bible, the Koran, Greek myths, philosophy, hermetic-alchemical tradition and literature. It regards the election of an underground, winding and oblique way between reality and fiction, and takes into account the fact that all human affairs bring as a key component, under the mask of language and the guise of cynicism, the struggle for power and the control of the body.

The papacies of Julius II and Leo X witnessed the continuing efforts of philosophers struggling toward the concept of prisca theologia, or "ancient theology,” as well as its implications for concordia, or the search for a reconciliation between non-Christian, pagan wisdom and the orthodox beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church. This thesis will explore the Vatican's relationship with some ancient Egyptian and Egyptianizing artifacts and motifs acquired under Popes Julius II and Leo X and the use of these objects in terms of the conceptual formulation of the prisca theologia and concordia. Specifically, I am interested in how these popes used material culture to further understand and propagate complex theological concepts. Beyond simply acquiring such objects, their physical positioning and arrangement within specific spaces and in proximity to other objects make possible nuanced dialogs between the objects themselves, the spaces they occupy, and their intended viewership.

Submitted by Maike Costa (maiksebas@gmail.com) on 2017-01-18T14:28:57Z No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivo total.pdf: 5375250 bytes, checksum: d10017173e98e4382e54b9c7b5c32085 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-01-18T14:28:57Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivo total.pdf: 5375250 bytes, checksum: d10017173e98e4382e54b9c7b5c32085 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-06-20 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / This dissertation has as object to show the Hermeticism not only as an ancient philosophical movement, but as a current of thought that breaks with the classical Greek rationality, directing him to a religious philosophical view, or a philosophical religiosity through a unification of the philosophical doctrines and Greco-Egyptian religious. The philosophical problems of theoretical are opposed to the problems about the divine and an experience with divinity, in short a “theologi”. The Hermeticism has as its patron and founder the mythical figure of Hermes Trismegistus, who together survived with Platonism, Middle-Platonism, Middle Stoa and Aristotelianism to the average age because some transmission channels. The Hermeticism rises again with greater force and fury in the Renaissance, shaping or presenting a pre-Christian primordial revelation called prisca theologia or ancient theology. Hermeticism became the Renaissance center of a revival or reediting the theological-metaphysical ancient thought that it intended to seek a new way of interpreting Christianity then. Thus was the basis of a generating hermeneutics of meaning and unification, as well as a sponsor of affirmative relations between philosophies and religions, diversity and religious tolerance. It will also be the source of a form of thought called Western Esotericism, working with one of the cultural and present engines in the history of called esoteric current subsequent to the fifteenth century, presenting itself as the most current research in the area as a rejected knowledge in the history of the West. It will be understood as a key element in the sense that it collaborated heavily for the establishment of an imaginary and an episteme in the Renaissance period, while its epistemological structure survived as a form of thought, while it was rejected by the academy. Thus, Hermeticism has, as a form of thought, an extremely complex logic and epistemological constituent and dynamic which can serve us today as an epistemological and hermeneutic relief as occurred in front antiquity to the decline of Greek rationalism and Renaissance front need for reform in Christianity. / Esta dissertação tem o objetivo de apresentar o Hermetismo não somente como uma corrente filosófica antiga, mas como uma corrente de pensamento que rompe com a racionalidade clássica grega, direcionando-o a uma visão filosófico-religiosa, ou a uma religiosidade filosófica, através de uma unificação entre as doutrinas filosóficas e religiosas greco-egípcia. Os problemas filosóficos de ordem teórica são contrapostos aos problemas acerca do divino e de uma experiência com a divindade, em suma a uma “teologia”. O Hermetismo possui o patrono e fundador a figura mítica de Hermes Trismegistos, que sobreviveu conjuntamente com o Platonismo, o Médio-platonismo, o médio Estoicismo e o Aristotelismo até a idade média graças alguns canais de transmissão. O Hermetismo ressurgirá com maior força e furor no Renascimento, conformando ou apresentando uma revelação primordial pré-cristã chamada de prisca theologia ou primeira teologia. O Hermetismo se tornou no Renascimento o centro de um reavivamento ou reatualização do pensamento teológico-metafísico antigo que pretendia buscar uma nova maneira de interpretar o Cristianismo de então. Desta forma foi a base de uma hermenêutica geradora de sentido e unificação, além de promovedora de afirmativas relações entre as filosofias e religiões, de diversidade e tolerância religiosa. Será também a fonte de uma forma de pensamento chamada de esoterismo ocidental, funcionando com um dos motores culturais e presente na história das ditas correntes esotéricas posteriores ao séc. XV, apresentando-se conforme as mais atuais pesquisas da área como um conhecimento rejeitado na história do ocidente. Será entendido como elemento fundamental no sentido em que ele colaborou fortemente para o estabelecimento de um imaginário e de uma episteme no período do Renascimento, enquanto que sua estrutura epistemológica sobreviveu enquanto uma forma de pensamento, ao mesmo tempo em que foi rejeitado pela academia. Sendo assim, o Hermetismo possui, enquanto uma forma de pensamento, uma constituinte lógica e epistemológica extremamente complexa e dinâmica a qual pode nos servir hoje enquanto socorro epistemológico e hermenêutico assim como ocorreu na Antiguidade frente à decadência do racionalismo grego, e no Renascimento frente à necessidade de reforma na cristandade.

On n’aborde jamais un texte sans une série d’acquis et de présupposés. Ceux-ci déterminent l’idée que l’on se fait du langage, du sens, du texte, de la littérature, de l’écrivain, de la lecture. Tout un ensemble d’idées non-formulées viennent conditionner l’expérience que l’on fait du texte. Dès lors, une image de la littérature opère inconsciemment dans l’esprit du lecteur et tend à limiter le panel d’expériences que celui-ci peut faire de l’œuvre. Nous croyons que cette image procède d’une certaine science critique, héritière d’une tradition philosophique qui valorise la connaissance en premier lieu. La littérature est alors asservie au projet cognitif que la communauté se donne. Nous avons souhaité proposer un nouvel abord du texte qui puisse débrider les connexions possible à celui-ci. Une approche pragmatique et empirique qui s’attache davantage à maximiser le gain éthique et existentiel en germe dans la relation à l’œuvre littéraire qu’à dégager une saisie conceptuelle de ce que serait l’œuvre. Non plus cerner ce que le texte voudrait dire, mais multiplier les branchements. Pour appuyer cette nouvelle présentation, nous avons étudié la relation entretenue par trois poètes avec la peinture (Artaud, Michaux, du Bouchet). Nous avons tenté de démontrer que leur relation au langage impliquait une autre manière de lire - davantage tournée vers les conséquences affectives et perceptives de l’expérience. En même temps que la critique d’une certaine perspective dominante sur la littérature (conventionnalisme, herméneutique, phénoménologie...) notre thèse propose, éclairée par une pluralité de regards (philosophes, peintres, poètes, tradition judaïque), un nouveau champ d’expérience. / One can’t approach a text without a series of presupposed knowledge determining the idea one makes about language, meaning, text, literature, the writer and reading. A whole ensemble of unformulated ideas influences the experience of the text one can have. Then, an image of what literature is or supposed to be operates secretly in the reader’s mind - limiting the spectrum of experiences. We believe that image proceeds from a certain critical science, successor of a philosophical tradition enhancing knowledge above all. Literature is then enslaved by the cognitive project of the community. We wished to propose a new way of approaching the text - so we could unbridle the possible connections to it. A pragmatic and empiric approach more concerned by the ethical and existential benefit of the literature encounter than by a conceptual understanding of what the work may be. Not wondering what the text means but what one can do with it. We studied the relationship between three poets (Artaud, Michaux, du Bouchet) and painting, trying to demonstrate that their relation to language is asking for a new way of reading (concerned with perceptive and affective consequences). Our thesis is both criticizing a certain dominant perspective on literature (conventionalism, hermeneutic, phenomenology...) and proposing by the means of different angles (philosophers, painters, poets, judaic tradition...) a new field of experience.

<p>Jean d’Espagnet (c. 1564–1637?) was a magistrate and presiding judge at the<em> parlement </em>of  Bordeaux  in  the  late  sixteenth  and  early  seventeenth  centuries.    He  served  on  the  court  from 1590 until retiring in 1615, from 1600 as a <em>président</em>, a venal office of significant power and social standing. After retirement he wrote three books which comprise his literary and intellectual legacy.Together they speak to the fertile philosophical ground of the late Renaissance and present a vision of order and God’s cosmos deeply influenced by Neoplatonism,  Hermetism,  Paracelsianism, Neostoicism,  and  medieval  alchemy,  as  well  as  d’Espagnet’s  judicial  education  and  social experience as a magistrate.  This dissertation explores the foundations of d’Espagnet’s philosophy of nature, tracing the development of certain philosophical ideas from ancient sources such as the Platonic and Hermetic traditions through medieval and Renaissance philosophers like Ramon Lull, Pseudo-Geber, and Marsilio Ficino to d’Espagnet and his contemporaries.  Paracelsian chemical medicine found some  acceptance during d’Espagnet’s lifetime, though not without struggle and dangers to its adherents.  This project also examines the context of d’Espagnet’s life and experience as a judicial elite in a kingdom and community beset by religious strife and political uncertainty.It argues that d’Espagnet and his fellow magistrates desperately sought order in the midst of these troubles,  and  that d’Espagnet echoed across all his writings this  concern  for  order  alongside a particular set of ideas about gender, shared by his fellow magistrates, according to which feminine passions  were  the  root  of  disorder  and masculine  reason was  the  antidote.    This gendered understanding of order was fundamental to d’Espagnet’s thought and reinforced by his syncretic reading of ancient and modern philosophical textsalongside his own experience, leading him to produce a unique and consistent syncretic philosophy that sought to answer definitively some of humanity’s oldest questions about the nature of matter, man, and the cosmos.</p>

Nasir-ud-Din Muhammad Humayun (1508-1556), simply known as Humayun, was the second emperor of the Mughal Empire in India. He is often known with a discredited image in history even though recent investigations show a new, different, and regenerated perspective about him. This reconsideration is in relation to the philosophical, syncretic, and artistic pursuits and the spiritual heritage that he transmitted, which came to impact and define Mughal tradition and culture overall. Accordingly,  this thesis has on one hand the purpose to analyse and expose the not so much known “occult sciences” of Humayun, known as ‘ulum-i ghariba, which are defined in relation to their appliances and historical contexts, especially in relation to Sufism and Arabic Hermeticism. They are moreover explored in how they were experienced in the imperial administration of the early Mughal court. On the other hand, these “occult sciences” of Humayun are analysed and discussed in relation to the definitions of Western esotericism and practices of Renaissance Hermeticism as taught by Antoine Faivre, whose theory is employed for this thesis. The method used for this investigation combines a qualitative text analysis and a specific empirical approach with diachronic and synchronic applications. The result of this research shows that the “occult sciences” of Humayun help to define and confirm a wider study field of “comparative esotericism”, which goes beyond the borders of the Western culture, and which is found with its unique interpretations as an esoteric expression within Islam, and specifically at the dawn of the Mughal tradition.

"Sacramental Magic" explores the animate statue in early modem romance as an emblem of the potential spiritually transformative power of objects. The tendency of New Historicism to "empty out" theology from Catholicism overlooks the continued power of sacred objects in Reformation literature. My dissertation joins the recent turn to religion in early modern studies--Catholic doctrine and religious experience explain the startling presence of benevolent animate statues in Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton; one would expect these statues to be empty idols, but instead they animate, revealing a real presence of the divine. I first investigate Spenser's Egyptian lexicon for the Catholic veneration of sacred images in the Temple of Isis in the Faerie Queene. Embedding Britomart's dream vision of an English empire in Egyptian mythology creates a translatio imperii from Egypt to Rome to England, transferring not only political but also religious power. The Isis statue's transformation of Britomart bears striking textual and visual correlations to John Dee's hermetic Monas Hieroglyphica. For Shakespeare, ermetic magic emblematizes the sacrament of penance. Shakespeare's claim "to make men glorious" suggests that Pericles transforms its audience by effecting, not merely signifying, grace. The play emblematizes the restorative aspects of reconciliation, the antidote to the seven deadly sins, with alchemical and medical imagery, culminating in Cerimon's reanimation of Thaisa through an Egyptian magic based on the hermetic ritual to ensoul statues. The Winter's Tale continues Shakespeare's meditation upon the emotional metamorphoses produced by reconciliation. I argue that Shakespeare creates an affective communion among the audience members and the characters, an effect similar to the workings of the Holy Spirit in a Mass, emblematized by the hermetic animation of Hermione. The final chapter examines the Catholic and hermetic parallels in Milton's "Il Penseroso" and Comus. In both works, Milton traces a shared system of correspondences underlying Catholicism and hermeticism in order to explore the relationship between objects and the immaterial, through angelology, Ficinian music theory, the contemplative lives of nuns, the Catholic sacrament of Extreme Unction, and ritual exorcism.