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Reverse Transmutations: Béroalde de Vervilles Parody of Paracelsus in Le Moyen de parvenir: An Alchemical Language of Skepticism in the French Baroque*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Michael J. Giordano
Michael J. Giordano*
Affiliation:
Wayne State University
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Abstract

This essay analyzes the skeptical ideas of one of the most notorious works of the French Baroque, Le Moyen de parvenir. Its author, Béroalde de Verville, described his anti-novel as "une Satyre universelle," and one of his noteworthy accomplishments was to provide his troubled age with a relatively complete and innovative skeptical language based on both esoteric and exoteric alchemy. Conceiving of his text as a critical athanor, Béroalde conducts numerous experiments in transmutation that would turn Paracelsus' concepts into a kind of prima materia. Out of this reversion to the primordial emerges a general critique of ideas and social institutions through such alchemical notions as prime and ultimate matter, quintessence, astrosophy, the arcanum, the Archeus, and the Cagastrum.

Type
Studies
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 56 , Issue 1 , Spring 2003 , pp. 88 - 137
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 2003

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Footnotes

*

I would like to offer my heartfelt gratitude to my colleague Arthur F. Marotti who read the manuscript twice and offered patient and perceptive criticisms of earlier versions of this essay. I also thank Charles Stivale for his indispensable comments, and corrections and Lyndy Abraham for generously sharing her considerable knowledge of alchemical sources. I would also like to express my debt to the Center for Renaissance Studies at the Newberry Library for permitting me to consult Beroalde's works and to Kathleen Perry for encouraging me to embark on this investigation. Finally, I very much appreciate the comments of the two anonymous readers whose care and concern resulted in a much-improved final product. Any errors or shortcomings are strictly my own responsibility.

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