The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age

Frances Yates9780203167113, 9780203282472, 9780415254090, 0203167112, 0415254094

This book must begin with the statement that, like all my otherbooks, it is a strictly historical study. It is not an enquiry into ‘theoccult’ in general, which I am certainly not qualified to undertake.It is about what was known as ‘the occult philosophy’ inthe Renaissance. This philosophy, or outlook, was compoundedof Hermeticism as revived by Marsilio Ficino, to which Picodella Mirandola added a Christianised version of Jewish Cabala.These two trends, associated together, form what I call ‘theoccult philosophy’, which was the title which Henry CorneliusAgrippa gave to his highly influential handbook on the subject.There has been a tendency in modern studies to concentrateon the Hermetic side of the occult philosophy, a tendency towhich I may myself have contributed in my other books. Yet Ihave always insisted that the philosophy, or the movement,should be called ‘Hermetic–Cabalist’, not solely ‘Hermetic’, andI devoted a chapter in my book Giordano Bruno and the HermeticTradition to an attempt to expound Pico’s addition of JewishCabala, in a Christianised form, to Ficino’s Hermeticism.

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Table of contents :
Book Cover……Page 1
Title……Page 4
Contents……Page 5
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS……Page 8
PREFACE……Page 10
INTRODUCTION……Page 14
Medieval Christian Cabala: The Art of Ramon Lull……Page 24
The Occult Philosophy in the Italian Renaissance: Pico della Mirandola……Page 32
The Occult Philosophy in the Reformation: Johannes Reuchlin……Page 40
The Cabalist Friar of Venice: Francesco Giorgi……Page 46
The Occult Philosophy and Magic: Henry Cornelius Agrippa……Page 56
The Occult Philosophy and Melancholy: Drer and Agrippa……Page 70
Reactions against the Occult Philosophy: the Witch Craze……Page 84
Introduction……Page 100
John Dee: Christian Cabalist……Page 105
Spenser’s Neoplatonism and the Occult Philosophy: John Dee and The Faerie Queene……Page 124
Elizabethan England and the Jews……Page 157
The Reaction: Christopher Marlowe on Conjurors, Imperialists and Jews……Page 164
Shakespeare and Christian Cabala: Francesco Giorgi and The Merchant of Venice……Page 177
Agrippa and Elizabethan Melancholy: George Chapman’s Shadow of Night……Page 186
Shakespearean Fairies, Witches, Melancholy: King Lear and the Demons……Page 201
Prospero: The Shakespearean Magus……Page 215
Introduction……Page 224
Christian Cabala and Rosicrucianism……Page 226
The Occult Philosophy and Puritanism: John Milton……Page 235
The Return of the Jews to England……Page 242
EPILOGUE……Page 248
NOTES……Page 252
INDEX……Page 274