Spiritual Alchemy through Embodied Hieroglyphs in Jonson’s Mercury Vindicated from the Alchemists at Court

• Published in: Journal for early modern cultural studies Vol. 14; no. 3; pp. 55 - 82
• Main Author: Shrieves, Katherine
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania Press 01.07.2014
• Subjects: Alchemy; Collaboration; Cultural studies; Dance; Esoteric symbolism; ESSAYS; Eye movements; Hieroglyphics; Imagery; Jonson, Ben (1573-1637); Literary criticism; Masques; Mercury; Orgel, Stephen; Politics; Rhetoric; Social mobility; Symbolism; Villiers, George (1592-1628); Writing systems; United States > US; Chicago Illinois; California
• ISSN: 1531-0485; 1553-3786; 1553-3786
• DOI: 10.1353/jem.2014.0035

This essay offers a culturally contextualized reading of Jonson’s Mercury Vindicated from the Alchemists at Court (1615). In doing so, the essay suggests how the masque’s multimodal imagery “works” upon the masquers and spectators. Reading the masque as an embodied hieroglyphic experience consisting...