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  3. The Elizabethan world was populated, not only by tough seamen, hard-headed p

The Elizabethan world was populated, not only by tough seamen, hard-headed p

游客2025-04-18  26
问题     The Elizabethan world was populated, not only by tough seamen, hard-headed politicians and serious theologians. It was a world of spirits, good and bad, fairies, demons, witches, ghosts, conjurors. This fact about the Elizabethans, reflected in their poetry, is too well known to need elaboration. The epic poem in which the aspirations of the age found expression evolved around a "fairy" queen; one of the most significant figures in the poem is an enchanter. And the greatest plays of the greatest poet of the age are suffused in the atmosphere of the occult. Macbeth meets witches; Hamlet is haunted by the ghost. Was this preoccupation with the occult derived solely from popular traditions or influences? Or did it have some deep-seated connection with the philosophy of the age?
    In other words, was there a philosophy of the occult characteristic of the Renaissance which might still have been operating with renewed vigour in the Elizabethan Renaissance? The history of such a philosophy has been the theme of the first part of this book. The second part, now beginning, connects closely with the first part, for it will argue that the dominant philosophy of the Elizabethan age was precisely the occult philosophy, with its magic, its melancholy, its aim of penetrating into profound spheres of knowledge and experience, scientific and spiritual, its fear of the dangers of such a quest, and of the fierce opposition which it encountered.
    The characteristic philosopher of the Elizabethan age was John Dee whose mathematical preface to the English translation of Euclid(1570)begins with an invocation to "Divine Plato" and quotes Agrippa von Nettesheim on the three worlds. Dee’s preface is the work of a Renaissance Neoplatonist organically connected with the Hermetic-Cabalist core of the movement, particularly as formulated by the most extreme of its exponents, Agrippa. Dee quotes Pico della Mirandola on number, and follows Pico, Reuchlin, and Agrippa in developing intensely the Pythagorean or mathematical side of the movement. His "mathematical" preface, and his teaching in general, was immensely influential in stimulating the Elizabethan scientific Renaissance.
    As is well known, Dee was not only famous as a mathematician but also famous, or infamous, as a "conjuror". How did he manage to reconcile his scientific and occult interests with his earnest claim to be a devout Christian and with his support of the Tudor Reformation? I believe that the answer to this question lies in realising that Dee was a Christian Cabalist, supporting the "more powerful" philosophy implicit in Neoplatonism as understood by Pico, Reuchlin, Giorgi, Agrippa and as developed in the Renaissance occult tradition.
    To view Dee as a Christian Cabalist explains, I believe, what appear to be the curious anomalies in his outlook. It explains how the same man could be a brilliant mathematician and ardent propagator of scientific studies, and a "conjuror" of angels, whilst fervently believing himself to be an ardent reformed Christian. It explains, too, his mysterious world-wide schemes of a religious nature, his missionary journey to the continent. As a representative of the inspired melancholy with its three stages of insight as expounded by Agrippa, he would see Christian Cabala the "more powerful" philosophy which was to supersede scholasticism, as potentially a world-wide movement of reform, to be applied not only in Elizabethan England.
    If, after studying the history of the occult philosophy in the Renaissance outlined in the first part of this book, we follow the themes into the life and work of Dee, we may begin to see Dee in his true historical context. He appears as truly a man of the late Renaissance developing Renaissance occult philosophy in scientific directions, involved in the religious and reforming side of the movement, but overtaken by the reaction of the later sixteenth century.
    It is important to bear in mind the late date of the Elizabethan Renaissance. It begins to flourish at a time when, on the continent, the reaction against Renaissance Neoplatonism and its associated occultisms was growing greatly in intensity as part of the Counter-Reformation effort to apply a restrictive attitude towards Renaissance Neoplatonism. The building up of Queen Elizabeth I as a Neoplatonic heroine by Spenser was in itself a challenge to the Catholic Counter-Reformation powers and their attitude to Renaissance philosophy. [br] The author’s stated purpose is______.
选项 A、to determine if John Dee was actually a practitioner of the occult
B、to explore the underlying theme in Elizabethan literature
C、to see if the source occult practice in the Elizabethan age was merely folk culture at work or if it was derived from the philosophers/philosophies of that age
D、to look at the antagonistic relationship between the information and the counter-reformation
答案 C
解析 根据第一段的“Was this preoccupation with the occult derived solely frompopular traditions or influences?Or did it have some deep-seated connection with the philosophy of the age?”可知，作者在文中提出了两个问题，即这种对神秘的关注完全来自民间传统或影响吗?或者它是否与这个时代的哲学有着一些深层次的联系?据此可知，作者阐述的目的是思考伊丽莎白时代的神秘习俗仅仅是民间文化还是源自那个时代的哲学。C项正确。
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