Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
row-minded scope of aims and the reduced circumspection of chemists,
while at the same time acknowledging the power of chemical experimen-
tation. However, as they anachronistically employed the medieval al-
chemists for their purpose, with the aims of making gold, elixirs of life,
or homunculi, their criticism did not represent what contemporary chem-
ists were actually doing. It seems that writers were too much occupied by
the motifs of their literature tradition.
An early example is Wieland's already mentioned fairy tale
Der Stein
der Weisen
(1786-89), where the author discusses at length how the
economy would break down if alchemical gold-making were successful.
Exactly the same thread of economic inflation, although expressed in a
completely different literary style and with several references to contem-
porary chemists (Humphry Davy), is expounded in Edgar Allen Poe's
hoax short story “Von Kempelen and His Discovery” (1849).
15
In his
tragedy
Der Adept
(1838),
16
the Austrian writer Friedrich Halm (1806-
71) let his “Magister of chemistry”, through the successful making of
gold, become morally corrupted and guided only by avarice, excessive-
ness, and unrestrained ambitions. As a kind of curse, the poor chemists
meets the same vices in all other people, before he returns to his old vir-
tues of altruistic and idealistic scientific research at the happy end. Com-
pared to Halm's simple moralistic play, William Godwin's second and
much earlier novel,
St. Leon
(1799),
17
is rather subtle and was both more
original and influential. Godwin revived the medieval topic of the al-
chemist's obsession with the philosophers' stone and the elixir of life,
but, as his sixteenth-century hero is indeed successful, the obsession is
extended towards using these gifts for the benefit of humanity. Thus, the
miserable seeker turns into a miserable benefactor. Wherever he tries to
apply his gifts, the results are disastrous. What the tragic alchemist un-
derestimates and ignores is that society is driven by different forces, po-
15
First published in
The Flag of Our Union
, 4 (14 April 1849). Burton R. Pollin (1970,
chap. 10) considers the story as the “culmination of Poe's efforts in the field of the
literary hoax” (p. 166). Resuming “the entire orientation of Poe to experimental and
theoretical science”, he concludes that “Poe humorously maintained that modern in-
ventions are inferior copies or postludes to the glories of Egypt and makes a poor
joke about the present lack of advance” (p. 184).
16
First published Wien: Gerold, 1838; repr. in
Werke
(Gerold: Wien, 1856), vol. 2.
17
First published London: Robinson, 1799.
