The alchemical feminine: women, gender, and sexuality in alchemical images

Abstract

The product of more than 25 years of research, M.E. Warlick's The Alchemical Feminine is a pioneering analysis of a hitherto neglected aspect of alchemy. Framing the subject's rich and diverse iconography within chronological, geographical, and thematic terms, Warlick's argument examines the shifting presentation and emphasis given to the feminine within an ever more masculine domain. Summarizing the book, the author notes: 'The images of women compiled in this volume evolved from alchemical philosophy, in which gendered and sexualized concepts are used to describe physical matter and laboratory processes. When alchemical imagery arose in the late Middle Ages, and over the next three centuries, images of women developed in ways that reflected wider social pressures. Building on scholarly studies of the increasing exclusion of women from public arenas in the early modern period, The Alchemical Feminine examines the transformations of alchemical images of women and the increasing of earlier feminine imagery.' When alchemy returned from the Middle East to the Latin West, metals were thought to be composed of hot, dry, fixed, Philosophic Sulphur (masculine), and cool, moist, volatile, Philosophic Mercury (feminine). In the laboratory, these lovers fused in a 'Chemical Wedding' that produced their child, the 'Philosophers' Stone,' a mysterious catalyst enabling the transformation of base metals into silver and gold. As alchemical imagery developed, women appeared as philosophers, religious figures, royal queens, sexual partners, cosmological personifications, mythological deities, allegorical symbols of Nature and the wives of fools. Herbal alchemy also had ancient roots, and it is in this realm that women as alchemical practitioners can be found. With more than 200 illustrations, this ground-breaking book examines the alchemical feminine and the thematic diversity of alchemical images of women.

Contents

Women and the origins of alchemy -- Asia and the Middle East -- Alchemy in the Latin West -- Stain and redemption -- The body and the vessel -- Mother nature, mother earth -- As above, so below -- Mythological metamorphosis -- The domestic alchemist --The foolish alchemist's wife -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography.