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Transmuting John Gower: Elias Ashmole’S Hermetic Reading Of Gower’S Jason And The Golden Fleece, Curtis Runstedler

Accessus

This article examines Elias Ashmole’s alchemical reading of John Gower’s tale of Jason and the Golden Fleece in the Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum (1652). I argue that this tale can be read as alchemical and connects to the Renaissance humanist tradition of reading classical stories as alchemical as well as Book IV of the Confessio Amantis, in which Gower depicts alchemy as the ideal form of human labour. Jason, representing the aspiring adept in this reading, is aided by his lover Medea, who represents a master alchemist with her supernatural powers, and through his intensive labours he is successful as …