Mitopoiesi britannica e rosacrocianesimo in Shakespeare. Uno studio di Frances A. Yates – Luca G. Manenti – Stratagemmi 17

Descrizione

The essay proposes a critical reading of Frances Amelia Yates studies on foundation myths builded up and promoted in England under Elizabeth Tudor and James I. Particular attention is given to masque and dramas performed in court while king Stuart was preparing a political alliancesconsolidation on the continent. The crown’s matrimonial strategy especially was the center of a heated cultural debate between William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. Two quite distinct ways of understanding not only politics, but also science and magic were implicated in this argument. While Shakespeare espressed, with many allusions in his works, his liking for Esoterism and Rosicucianism, Jonson put in his comedies harsh, critical referiments to these currents of thought. The essay cares in regard the recent historiography on the subject, to light not only the weakness points in Yates’works, but also the many undoubted merits of an author which measured herself with such a fascinating and complex matter.