Shakespeare's Demonology

A Dictionary

Marion Gibson, Jo Ann Esra

• Publisher: The Arden Shakespeare
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781474253956
• eBook ISBN: 9781472500311
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism of Shakespeare
• Index: Literature

This volume in the long-running and acclaimed Shakespeare Dictionary series is a detailed, critical reference work examining all aspects of magic, good and evil, across Shakespeare's works. Topics covered include the representation of fairies, witches, ghosts, devils and spirits.

A

Accursed

See also: cursing, uncursing, witchcraft, Lady Anne, Joan La Pucelle, devil, fiend, Jane Shore, ban, damnation, forbid

(A) The term ‘accursed’ is used to describe a person, object or time that is, variously, perceived to be unlucky, ill-fated or literally subject to a curse. In many usages, ‘accursed’ has thus almost freed itself from magical associations, but its frequency (it is used over 30 times in Shakespeare’s plays and poems) suggests the extent to which demonological thinking was embedded in the English language in Shakespeare’s time. A curse could be lifted by uncursing, but in literature curses tend to work themselves out unchallengeably and unbreakably – they thus embody the notion of poetic justice, often in a case where a victim of injustice gets their revenge on a powerful adversary through the power of words.

(B) As examples of the ways in which ‘accursed’ had spread in its usage beyond its original demonological context, there are no immediately magical connotations in these references to the concept: ‘accurs’d, unhappy, wretched, hateful day!’ (R&J 4.05.43), ‘accurs’d be he that seeks to make them foes’ (3 HVI 1.01.205), ‘in second husband let me be accurs’d’ (Ham. 3.02.179) and most famously Henry V’s optimistic prediction that gentlemen who miss the Battle of Agincourt will ‘think themselves accurs’d they were not here’ (HV 4.03.65). Yet there are still plenty of more literal, magical usages, and the term recurs in plays associated with witchcraft, such as Mac., RIII and 1 HVI: Macbeth’s is ‘a hand accurs’d’ (Mac. 3.06.49), whilst he himself rejects bad news with the malediction ‘accursed be that tongue that tells me so’ (5.08.17). Meanwhile, Richard of Gloucester is ‘accursed/For making me, so young, so old a widow’ (by Lady Anne; RIII 4.01.72–3) and is referred to as the child of an ‘accursed womb, the bed of death’ (4.01.53) Disorder in the microcosm of the play is expressed through curse metaphors, incantations and cognate words. The play’s tensions and the confusions of kinship thus could be said to originate from the ‘accursed womb’ of Richard’s mother, the Duchess of York. More literally, the witch Joan La Pucelle is called a ‘foul accursed minister of hell’ (1 HVI 5.04.93). In Tit. Aaron’s status as a ‘devil’ is also reflected in the language of cursing used to describe him and his child: ‘accurs’d the offspring of so foul a fiend’ (4.02.79) and ‘this accursed devil’ (5.03.5). The notion of accursedness is sometimes combined by Shakespeare with the opposing notion of being blessed, which is also applied freely and vaguely to a variety of situations: ‘how accurs’d/In being so blest’ (WT 2.01.38) helps to balance ‘most accurs’d am I’ in the same play (3.03.52) whilst the pairing occurs twice in Tim.: ‘blest to be most accurs’d’ (4.02.42) and ‘bless the accurs’d’ (4.03.35).

(C) Focusing on the phrase ‘accursed womb’, Iizuka (2004) discusses the nature of the abuse levelled at Richard III, which emphasizes his ugly appearance, the intertwined evil aspects of his personality and the links with the Vice figure of morality plays. The Duchess of York’s rejection of her consequently accursed offspring operates as a form of prophecy of Richard’s downfall and death: the ‘accursed womb’ has produced a physically deformed Richard and an accursed family. This analysis of accursedness can be applied to other works. Steible (2003) examines Jane Shore and former Queens Elizabeth and Margaret as witches, emphasizing that their cursing is aimed against tyranny as well as Richard personally, and constitutes a political act: the state and throne as accursed as well as the individual.

Alchemy

See also: magic, demon/daemon, astronomy, angel, spirit, transformation, monster, occult, book

(A) Alchemy is an Arabic word for a magical and scientific practice that is concerned with seeking enlightenment and making the philosopher’s stone (which was thought to transmute base metals into gold, heal disease, preserve health and prolong life). Alchemical texts recorded procedures, recipes and principles: thus alchemy was concerned with methodological rules and instructions, checklists, diagrams and formulae. Its study is a precursor to chemistry (a word descended from ‘alchemy’). Yet alchemy was also seen as a form of ‘natural magic’ or part of ‘natural philosophy’ and the hermetic tradition. To some it trespassed into demonic magic, although its practitioners denied this. They preferred to stress its potential for philosophical and public good: it sought pious truths, they argued, and it could be applied medicinally. Astrologer-magicians like Simon Forman and John Dee (see astronomy, angel) were both interested in alchemy, amongst other occult sciences. Forman saw alchemy as one component of the science of astronomy. Astrology and alchemy were also related through the correspondence between the seven planets and the seven alchemical metals: gold/silver with the sun/moon; and the five planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn) with the five metals (mercury, copper, iron, tin and lead). A leading authority for alchemical work was Hermes Trismegistus, the fictional ancient Egyptian sage whose alleged writings prompted the doctrines and cosmology known as hermeticism. The alchemical texts attributed to him had been circulated since the thirteenth century. In the late fifteenth century further, more philosophical texts attributed to Hermes were discovered and brought to Florence to be translated from Greek to Latin by Marsilio Ficino, a humanist at work for Cosmo de’Medici. These were printed as the Corpus Hermeticum (1463), and prompted Ficino to situate man as an intermediary between the divine and the natural, the macrocosm and the microcosm. He posited a ‘spiritus mundi’, a world spirit that could be tapped into by magicians and alchemists. Thus by Shakespeare’s time alchemy had a strong spiritual dimension, allowing natural-magical transformation to occur.

(B) It is in this transformative sense that Shakespeare uses the word, although the transformations are profoundly questionable. The sun is portrayed as ‘gilding pale streams with heavenly alcumy’ (Son. 33.4) and monsters are turned to cherubim by the poet’s eye since ‘your love taught it this alcumy’ (Son. 114.4). Both changes are either illusory or matters of perception, surface rather than depth: is the lover a monster still, as the sonnet seems to suggest? Is the stream really changed to gold, as alchemists aimed to do, or simply ‘gilded’ with a thin layer of gold to make it look flashy, a doubly superficial non-transformation? Similarly the sun ‘plays the alchymist’ in KJ (3.01.78) making earth appear golden. Casca says that Brutus’ approval ‘like richest alchymy’ will turn the conspirators’ planned murder of Julius Caesar to ‘virtue’ and ‘worthiness’; yet it will still be murder and the play explores whether that can be carried out honourably by honourable men or not. Will Brutus’s good intentions really transform the act? (JC 1.03.159). In Tim., the queasy association of alchemy with deceit is overtly related to poetry. A poet comes to seek Timon, flattering him and promising yet-unwritten work. Timon beats him, urging ironically: ‘you are an alcumist, make gold of that’ (5.01.114). Poetry is alchemy, which could be a beautiful and fulfilling image, but here it is non-existent poetry, framed by lies and the fraudulent exploitation of a potential patron.

(C) Healy (2011) explores the alchemical imagery of Shakespeare’s Son. and other poems such as PT (which contains references to bird-names used to designate different stages of alchemical processes, and a quasi-mystical union of the kind imagined to occur between elements in a ‘chemical wedding’). She suggests that whilst Shakespeare was less interested in alchemy than some of his contemporaries, such as Jonson and Donne, he engages with alchemical imagery in more depth than has been previously discussed, including using it to signify genuine spiritual transformation. See also Muñoz Simonds (1998, 1999) for an alchemical reading of V&A and sonnets 19–20 and Gray (2006) on Neo-Platonism in the sonnets. Vickers (1984) discusses the potential of alchemy as a literary image. On Dee and Forman, see Harkness (1996, 1999) and Kassell (2005). On the wider alchemical context see Linden (2007), Merkel and Debus (1988), eds, Graubard (1953) and Eggert (2006).

Almanac

See also: book, astronomy, auspicious, star, planet, eclipse, prophecy, magic, Dromio of Ephesus, supernatural, nativity

(A) The almanac, a word probably of Arabic origin, was a text closely related to astrology and astronomy. Almanacs were books and manuscripts containing charts and calendars that detailed celestial positions over the forthcoming year, such as auspicious astral positions (thus of both stars and planets), and gave details of eclipses, tide times, weather patterns and other useful information. They were used as an aid to astrological medicine, and designed to be carried about for ready reference. The printed almanacs of Shakespeare’s time were thus small, cheap and portable and the almanac seller was a familiar figure on the streets of London and the provinces. Medieval manuscript almanacs tended to contain a ‘kalendar’ with ecclesiastical information regarding church festivals, whilst early fifteenth-century printed almanacs were also historical records, and contained predictions or prophecies. Yet the latter was dangerous territory, verging on or straying into the magical so that almanacs were often regarded as deluded or lying, and their sellers as tricksters or tempters. The debates expressing concerns about almanacs were similar to those regarding astrology generally, and the opposition to judicial astrology – prediction being viewed as undermining God and moral responsibility. The seventeenth century saw a growing number of almanacs which set out the basic rules of astrology in a clear and simple manner, and so astrological terms passed into common usage (lunatic, jovial, mercurial). This was seen by some to be leading ignorant readers into territory with which they were unfamiliar, making them foolish pseudo-experts.

(B) Shakespeare follows a popular strain of comedy in mocking almanacs and those who regarded them as oracular. ‘Look in the almanac’ says Bottom in MND (3.01.53) when he wants to know if the moon will be shining brightly on the night of his theatrical performance. It is a reasonable scientific use of the calendar, but in its context is intended to be funny. Bottom’s almanac remains anonymous, though certain publications were sometimes named onstage for added comic effect. Sim...

Table of contents

• Arden Shakespeare Dictionaries
• Title
• Contents 
• Acknowledgements
• Series Editor’s Preface
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• A-Z
• Bibliography
• Index
• Copyright