And now I will unclaspe a Secret booke, And to your quicke
conceyving Discontents, Ille reade you Matter, deepe and dangerous
As full of peril and adventurous Spirit...- William Shakespeare,
"King Henry IV", Part I. Whilst Shakespeare's genius is universally
recognized, there is a hidden, secretive side to his work that is
little known: the fact that he made use of a mysterious code that
figures widely in the esoteric literature of the Elizabethan and
Jacobean periods. The Bard of Avon was a master of such encoding,
and his methods were continued, in the Folio of 1623 and in his
various memorials, by those who had known him. However, Shakespeare
was not the inventor of this code. Among the many arcane authors
who made use of it before him was Michel Nostradamus, the famous
French prophet and savant. As David Ovason reveals, many leading
esoteric writers - alchemists, occultists and Rosicrucians -
contributed to this 'Secret booke'. Among the more outstanding
English literary figures who used the code were the mysterious
adviser to Elizabeth I, John Dee, the turbulent author of "The
Alchemist, Ben Jonson", and the more classically-minded Edmund
Spenser, whose poem "The Faerie Queene" is the best-known esoteric
work of the period. "Shakespeare's Secret Booke" reveals many other
literary figures who together form a remarkable underground
literary movement, including the most influential esotericist of
the period, Jacob Boehme, and alchemists such as the English
polymath Robert Fludd. Another was Shakespeare's contemporary, the
youthful Johann Valentin Andreae, credited as author of "The
Chymical Wedding" - a Rosicrucian work replete with sophisticated
examples of encoding. The fact that all these writers used the same
or similar encoding points to a secret teaching designed to be
recognized by initiates. Ovason explores and, for the first time,
reveals what Shakespeare alluded to as 'a Secret booke'.
General
Imprint: |
Clairview Books
|
Country of origin: |
United Kingdom |
Release date: |
November 2010 |
First published: |
2011 |
Authors: |
David Ovason
|
Dimensions: |
234 x 156 x 22mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback
|
Pages: |
256 |
ISBN-13: |
978-1-905570-26-3 |
Categories: |
Books
|
LSN: |
1-905570-26-0 |
Barcode: |
9781905570263 |
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