Product Description

Stunningly written and highly engaging, Yates' masterpiece is a must-read for anyone interested in the occult tradition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #99559 in Books
• Published on: 2001-05-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 264 pages

Review
'Among those who have explored the intellectual world of the sixteenth century, no one can rival Frances Yates. Wherever she looks, she illuminates . . . No one has done more than she to recreate, from unexpected material, the intellectual life of past ages.' – Hugh Trevor-Roper

'A welcome new edition of this classic work ...' – Network

From the Back Cover
It is hard to overestimate the importance of the contribution made by Dame Frances Yates to the serious study of esotericism and the occult sciences. To her work can be attributed the contemporary understanding of the occult origins of much of western scientific thinking, indeed of western civilization itself. The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age was her last book, and in it she condensed many aspects of her wide learning to present a clear, penetrating and, above all, accessible survey of the occult movements of the Renaissance, highlighting the work of John Dee, Giordano Bruno, and other key esoteric figures. The book is invaluable in illuminating the relationship between occultism and Renaissance thought, which in turn had a profound impact on the rise of science in the seventeenth century. Stunningly written and highly engaging, Yates's masterpiece is a must-read for anyone interested in the occult tradition.

About the Author
Dame Francis Yates (1899-1981) was Reader in the History of the Renaissance at the Warburg Institute, University of London. The leading Renaissance scholar of her time, she was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1977 in recognition of her services to Renaissance studies. Her other publications include The Art of Memory and The Rosicrucian Enlightenment.

Customer Reviews

Must have book for anyone interested in Occult philosophy.
An outstanding accomplishment by a writer who has given so much fresh understanding on this subject over the years. The real marvel is how anyone could do so much justice to an important review of such lives as those of John Dee, Pico Della Mirandola, Francesco Giorgi, Henry Cornelius Agrippa et al. This is a real gem and Dame Frances Yates shows the way yet again for the historians in rescuing such important figures from the shadowy world of Renaissance 'Magic'

Amazing
This book may be of value to academic historians labouring under the misconception that Renaissance magic is little more than divinely-inspired bunkum. If you are such a historian, then I would heartily recommend this book to you. You may find it revelatory.
However, the reason I refer to it as 'amazing' above, is because although the author could be said to give a more balanced view of the period, this is of very little consequence because in every crucial area she is no better than any other dull-as-ditchwater historian. It is as if she has looked a potentially very interesting time in history in the eye, and failed to register that all the time it was actually looking back at her.
I found myself almost leafing through page after page of inconsequential, parochial argument about such unspiritual things as 'facts' and the 'influence' of one writer on another, without ever gaining even a fragment of insight into the so-called 'occult philosophy' itself.
So to summarise: if you are looking for a misconceived trawl through the facts, whose aim is simply to correct the misconceptions harboured by fools, then buy this book. Perhaps you could skim it and then put it on your shelf.
Otherwise, spend your time doing something (anything) else.

cabalababble?
It's undeniable that Frances Yates' corpus of work represented a genuine breakthrough in historical and literary studies. Yates' studies genuinely changed the way we looked at the Renaissance. It's also hard to imagine Keith Thomas' 'Religion and the decline of Magic', the new historicism of Stephen Greenblatt or the place of the occult in popular culture without her influence.

However, It would also be a fair comment to say that 'The Occult Philosophy..' is a pretty stuffy read in places. It was obviously written for a scholarly market and as such, much of it functions as a literature review, commenting on and criticising other writers in the same field. The opening chapters on contemporary cabalistic philosophy are hard going, unless of course you've specialist interest in this area in the first place. Strange and mysterious it might be, but Elizabethan occult philosophy often comes across as a tediously elaborate system: a handbook for supernatural civil-servants.

There's also a great deal of speculation - Yates' is often caught wondering if such-and-such had seen such-and-such painting, or whether so-and-so is referring to this really obscure piece of cabala... All of this undermines the revolutionary import of her thesis. Although most of the work is firmly grounded in textual research, you do feel at times that Yates is wrestling the facts into a shape that fits squarely with her ideas.

That said, I found the three chapters on Durer and Melancholy, Chapman's 'Shadow of Night' and Christopher Marlowe totally fascinating. Her work on Shakespeare is revelatory, and her reading of 'The Merchant of Venice' in terms of Jewish mysticism had me scuttling back to the original text. I doubt somehow that i'll be hunting down the lesser known works of Cornelius Agrippa with as much zest...