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• The Paracelsan Philosophy and Plot in Romeo and Juliet
• Jaecheol Kim (bio)

Shakespeare, Paracelsus, and the Early Modern Medical Turn

Disease is often communicated through language, and the trajectory of contagion is coterminous with its discursive orbit. Early modern dramatic works, especially the plays of Shakespeare, pay keen attention to the linguistic matrix of disease.¹ Shakespeare lived during a time of important shifts in the history of medicine and disease, when leprosy gradually receded to the margins of social and medical concern, giving way to collective anxieties related to the rise of syphilis and occasional plague outbreaks. English Renaissance drama developed alongside this general shift in the medical concerns and disease control measures of English society.² In this essay, I investigate these parallel developments by exploring how Paracelsan medicine affected the literary imagination generally and Shakespeare's imagination in particular as a new system of medical thought, a system circulating in London print shops and apothecaries of the period, and I read Romeo and Juliet as a medical narrative informed by this system.

From a medical perspective, the plot of Romeo and Juliet reflects the operation of an organic human body. Ben Jonson's city comedy often reflects the early modern reception of humoralism by defining characters based on the four-humor (or four-element) theory. In Jonson's medical imagination, characters are defined by four different humors: yellow bile (fire), black bile (earth), phlegm (water), and blood (air). Characters not only become constructions of different humors but also often fashion their humors. In Every Man in His Humour, for instance, the gullible [End Page 252] countryman Stephen identifies himself as a melancholy man because he believes that it is fashionable in the city. Shakespeare also drew on humoralism to develop his characters. In Romeo and Juliet, for instance, Romeo is associated with melancholy at the beginning of the play because his dominant humor is black bile, while hot-tempered Tybalt embodies yellow bile. Paris is phlegmatic because he associates himself with water, specifically while standing before Juliet's grave, which, as he declares, "with sweet water nightly I will dew, / Or, wanting that, with tears distilled by moans" (5.3.14–15).³ Humoral theory was thus for early modern dramatists not only a medical philosophy but also a kind of literary principle. However, the focus of my analysis here is neither overt character constructions based on humoralism nor the prominent medical figures in the play such as Friar Laurence, the Apothecary, or the Nurse. Instead, I will show that Romeo and Juliet is a narrative actively responding to the medical reforms of the sixteenth century due to the advent of Paracelsan medicine. A few critics have found traces of Paracelsan rhetoric or concepts in Shakespeare's work.⁴ Contextualizing these elements by examining the Paracelsan discourses circulating among London print shops and apothecaries reveals the significant impact of such discourses on the plot of Romeo and Juliet.

In Shakespeare's time, the introduction of Paracelsan chemical science contributed to an important reform in disease control measures. This shift emerged out of the epicenter of London apothecaries. The apothecary and distiller John Hester, for instance, translated Paracelsan documents for English readers, and his translations were spread by print culture until they pervaded various realms of thoughts, from medicine and alchemy to metallurgy and literature. Coincidentally, the major Paracelsan turn took place between 1570 and 1600, a period coinciding with the formation of Elizabethan professional theatre. Indeed, Shakespeare produced Romeo and Juliet around the same time that Hester published his first translation of Paracelsus, A hundred and fourteen experiments and cures in 1596.⁵ There is also evidence to suggest that Shakespeare was aware of contemporary developments in medical thought and practice. In All's Well That Ends Well, he specifically mentions "Galen and Paracelsus" as great physicians "Of all the learned and authentic Fellows" (2.3.10–11). Shakespeare mentions Paracelsus as an emerging medical authority, [End Page 253] similar to other early modern dramatists such as John Webster.⁶ It is even more interesting that Shakespeare equates Paracelsus with Galen, a classical authority.

I do not claim that Shakespeare was conversant with Paracelsan doctrines or that...

中文翻译：

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《罗密欧与朱丽叶》中帕拉塞尔桑的哲学和情节

以下是内容的简短摘录，以代替摘要：

• 《罗密欧与朱丽叶》中帕拉塞尔桑的哲学和情节
• 金在哲 (个人简介)

莎士比亚、帕拉塞尔苏斯和早期现代医学转向

疾病往往是通过语言来传播的，传染的轨迹与其话语轨道是一致的。早期现代戏剧作品，尤其是莎士比亚的戏剧，非常关注疾病的语言母体。¹莎士比亚生活在医学和疾病史上发生重要转变的时代，当时麻风病逐渐退居社会和医学关注的边缘，取而代之的是与梅毒和偶尔爆发的鼠疫爆发相关的集体焦虑。英国文艺复兴戏剧是随着英国社会医疗问题和疾病控制措施的普遍转变而发展的。²在这篇文章中，我通过探索帕拉塞尔医学如何影响文学想象力，特别是莎士比亚的想象力，作为一种新的医学思想体系，这一体系在当时的伦敦印刷店和药剂师中流传，来研究这些并行的发展，我读了罗密欧《朱丽叶》是由该系统提供的医学叙述。

从医学角度来看， 《罗密欧与朱丽叶》的情节反映了有机人体的运作。本·琼森的城市喜剧通常通过基于四种幽默（或四种元素）理论来定义人物，从而反映了现代早期对幽默主义的接受。在琼森的医学想象中，角色由四种不同的体液定义：黄胆汁（火）、黑胆汁（土）、痰（水）和血液（空气）。人物不仅成为不同幽默的构建体，而且常常塑造他们的幽默。例如，在《每个人都有幽默感》中，容易上当的[完第252页]乡下人斯蒂芬认为自己是一个忧郁的人，因为他相信这在城市里很流行。莎士比亚还利用体液主义来塑造他的人物。例如，在《罗密欧与朱丽叶》中，罗密欧在戏剧的开头就与忧郁联系在一起，因为他的主要幽默是黑胆汁，而脾气暴躁的提伯尔特则体现了黄胆汁。帕里斯是冷漠的，因为他把自己与水联系在一起，特别是当他站在朱丽叶的坟墓前时，正如他所宣称的那样，“每晚我都会用甜水露水，/或者，想要那样，用呻吟蒸馏出的眼泪”（5.3.14-15） ）。³因此，对于早期现代剧作家来说，体液理论不仅是一种医学哲学，而且也是一种文学原则。然而，我在这里分析的重点既不是基于体液主义的明显角色构造，也不是剧中的杰出医学人物，如劳伦斯修士、药剂师或护士。相反，我将展示《罗密欧与朱丽叶》是一个积极响应十六世纪由于帕拉塞尔医学的出现而发生的医疗改革的叙事。一些评论家在莎士比亚的作品中发现了帕拉塞尔修辞或概念的痕迹。^{4通过研究在伦敦印刷店和药剂师中流传的帕拉塞尔桑话语，将这些元素置于背景中，揭示了此类话语对}罗密欧与朱丽叶情节的重大影响。

在莎士比亚时代，帕拉塞尔化学科学的引入促成了疾病控制措施的重要改革。这种转变源于伦敦药剂师的中心。例如，药剂师和酿酒师约翰·赫斯特（John Hester）为英语读者翻译了帕拉塞尔文件，他的翻译通过印刷文化传播，直到渗透到从医学和炼金术到冶金和文学的各个思想领域。巧合的是，帕拉塞尔桑岛的重大转变发生在 1570 年至 1600 年间，这一时期恰逢伊丽莎白时代专业剧院的形成。事实上，莎士比亚创作《罗密欧与朱丽叶》的时间大约与海丝特出版其首部帕拉塞尔苏斯译本《114 个实验与治疗》于 1596 年的时间相同^。5还有证据表明，莎士比亚意识到当代医学思想和实践的发展。在《一切都好，结局好》中，他特别提到“盖伦和帕拉塞尔苏斯”是“所有博学而真实的研究员”中的伟大医生（2.3.10-11）。莎士比亚提到帕拉塞尔苏斯是一位新兴的医学权威，[结束第 253 页]与约翰·韦伯斯特等其他早期现代剧作家类似。⁶更有趣的是，莎士比亚将帕拉塞尔苏斯与古典权威盖伦等同起来。

我并不是说莎士比亚熟悉帕拉塞尔教义或者……