Not (Just) Donne: Alchemical Transmutation as Immortality in Shakespeare’s Sonnets

<p>Shakespeare, in his sonnets, employs alchemical references in the sonnets that ultimately fail, in order to show how fruitless it is to pursue immortality. The poet urges the fair friend, who himself is like the self-consuming ouroboros, to father a child that will continue his legacy and allow the fair friend to live on via the child. Language associated with the child is alchemical, referencing distillation, vials, flasks, and the renewing power of the philosopher’s stone. The dark lady, the opposite of the fair friend in every way, can be explained as fulfilling alchemy’s union of opposites needed for a philosopher’s stone to be created. However, when the fabled medicinal baths cannot cure the poet of the ill love he has contracted from the dark lady, it becomes clear that, just as there is no philosopher’s stone, there is no immortality.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts in English (M.A.)

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis (open access)

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Department of Literature and Philosophy

Year dc:date.available

2015

Author dc:creator

• Moody, Brandi L

Contributors dc:contributor

• Candy BK Schille
• Julia Griffin

• ETD
• Sonnets
• alchemy
• Shakespeare
• philosopher's stone
• Donne
• Literature in English, British Isles

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd/1315

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu:etd-2372