Alchemical augmentation and primordial fire in Donne's "The Dissolution"

Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Wntr, 2005 by Roberta Albrecht

(14) Levine's interpretation of "The Dissolution" is one example of the critic misunderstanding the importance of water during the alchemical process. However, it is only fair to note that certain Renaissance theorists sometimes drew from Hippocrates when they argued that "the dangerous supremacy of moisture" may threaten the opus (Levine, p. 309n22). Citing Elias Ashmole's Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum, Levine argues that the subject of the poem is male impotence, and that the source of impotence is the woman, who has flooded male orgasm by her overabundant moisture. Levine draws from Edgar Hill Duncan, who believes that the chief concern of Donne's "A nocturnall upon S. Lucies day, Being the shortest day" is "deprivation, emptiness, [and] absence" resulting from the alchemical flood ("Donne's Alchemical Figures," ELH 9, 4 [December 1942]: 257-85, 283). A more recent voice would be Kate Gartner Frost, who (again commenting on "A nocturnall") notes the dual nature of the androgyne in alchemical theory as a combination of "the wet and the dry, male and female" ("'Preparing towards her': Contexts of A Nocturnall upon S. Lucies Day," in John Donne's "desire of more": The Subject of Anne More Donne in His Poetry, ed. M. Thomas Hester [Newark: Univ. of Delaware Press; London: Associated Univ. Press, 1996]. pp. 149-71, 152). Frost, however, is more concerned with the phenomenon of a world "bereft ... of moisture" (p. 150), evidence of some kind of spiritual wasteland. Neither Frost nor Duncan addresses issues raised in "The Dissolution." Their observations concerning the nature of water represent the generally accepted views of Renaissance hermetics as well as the theories of Hippocrates. Levine's insistence that "The Dissolution" be understood mainly in terms of two entirely separate elements--of dangerous "female moisture [which] dominates the male fire" (p. 309)--results in failure to comprehend Donne's meaning.

(15) Donne's Metempsychosis describes the mingled bloods of Adam and Eve "Like Chimiques equall fires" (Complete Poetry, pp. 309-29, line 494).

(16) Obviously there are other meanings, including dissolution of marriage.

(17) E. M. W. Tillyard, The Elizabethan World Picture (1943; rprt. New York: Random House, 1959), pp. 18-9. Tillyard is responding to the scarcity of references to the Pauline scheme of redemption in Renaissance literature.

(18) Shawcross understands "involve" as a reference to "the Hippocratic theory that the primary elements are contained in male and female semen in separation until recombined" (Complete Poetry, p. 144n5). Carey defines "involve" as "include," and he writes in his note to line 5, "At her death her elements--earth (despair), air (sighs), fire (passion), and water (tears)--enter his body and overburden it" (The Oxford Authors: John Donne, ed. Carey [Oxford and New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1990]. p. 446).

(19) During the black nigredo stage of dissolution, water is the dominant element. For a fuller explanation, see Abraham, Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998). Abraham cites Noah's flood as analogue, comparing the alchemical vessel to the ark: "In a variation on the flood theme, The Golden Tract tells of the bride hermetically sealed with her husband in the 'prison' of the vessel, dissolving into endless tears when she sees her husband melted with excessive ardour: 'she wept for him, and, as it were, covered him with overflowing tears, until he was quite flooded and concealed from view'" (Dictionary, s.v. "flood").