Margaret Healy: Shakespeare. Alchemy and the Creative Imagination. The Sonnets and A Lover’s Complaint

There is general agreement among Renaissance scholars that the theory and practice of Alchemy was of lively and continued interest to a great many writers, dramatists and poets. Jonson’s Alchemist, Donne’s “Love’s Alchemy”, and related titles are familiar examples. The impact of alchemical terminology on the literary language of the period has been traced in a number of particular cases, and Margaret Healy’s claim that “alchemical language pervades Shakespeare’s sonnets” (p. 3) comes as no real surprise. She is rightly intrigued by the inability of many commentators to find satisfactory explanations for a host of strange and puzzling images, comparisons and similes in these poems, especially if, as she assumes, A Lover’s Complaint is recognized as an integral part of the 1609 volume. Her sophisticated and admirably learned analyses provide plausible readings of a considerable number of passages that have perplexed earlier critics, once we are prepared to accept that the poetry contains a message revealed only to those familiar with the alchemist lexicon. Healy, as far as I am aware, is one of the first to propose a consistent interpretation of Shakespeare’s collection, as, she believes, his coterie friends and readers may have understood it.