Title: Introduction to a Corpus of Middle English Alchemical Poetry
Abstract: It was in this bibliophilic environment, and in the course of just a few decades, that Middle English alchemical poetry became the most emblematic, successful and current expression of the craft and its teachings. The late medieval alchemical poem upon the Elixir played a vital part in the communication of alchemical knowledge in the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries. Spain is indirectly connected with the Verses through intertextuality. With their allegorical depictions of the alchemical work, the Ripley Scrolls' illuminations are the most famous manifestation of alchemical illustrations of early modern England. In relation to the upon the Elixir two prose texts (Lead and Hend) constitute such an extension of the corpus. Another prose text, a Latin prose translation of the text of the upon the Elixir, entitled Terrae Philosophicae, rounds of the extended history of the corpus in the later parts of its history.Keywords: corpus; early modern England; Lead; Middle English Alchemical Poetry; Ripley Scrolls; Terra Terrae Philosophicae; Thomas Hend