HERMETIC SYMBOLISM IN THE SHAKESPEARIAN PLAYS
HERMETIC SYMBOLISM IN THE SHAKESPEARIAN PLAYS

Summary/Abstract: Since Hermeticism was an important trend that influenced Western Europe, from the 15th century on, Shakespeare got in contact with these thoughts and philosophies, as an actor with many connections to the royal court. In Shakespeare’s plays, we find supernatural elements of the world of myth and fairies, influences of Ovid and Virgil’s mythical universe and the theme of a hermetic bond between the natural world and the man’s deeds. The storms are symbols of major change, ancient Egyptian magic practices interfere in man’s life, and the Lesser and Greater Mysteries of Eleusis are embedded in the structure of the plays through symbolic stories of initiation. In Shakespeare’s plays magic is regenerative as nature is (in comedies and fairy plays), mathematical, through the use of music, geometry and astrology, and religious, which can be either ascending or destructive, depending on the hero’s inner harmony or imbalance.

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