Figure of Lilith and the feminine demonic in early modern literature
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Date
28/06/2012Author
Spoto, Stephanie Irene
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Abstract
To mark its 250th anniversary in 2002, the British Museum decided to make one of the
earliest existent depictions of Lilith, or Astarte, its chief acquisition. Called The Burney
Relief —after Sidney Burney, who had purchased it in 1935— it was purchased in June
2003 from a Mr Sakamoto at the price of ₤1,500,000. To celebrate its entrance into the
museum's collections, it was renamed the “Queen of the Night” by the British Museum
(Collon 2005 511).
It has been connected to feminine divine and demonic figures, such
as Ishtar, Lilith, Astarte, and has been called “Queen of the Underworld” (Collon 2007
50).
My thesis looks at these figures of the feminine demonic and the evolution of
occult philosophy, and particularly demonology, within Early Modern England, and how
demonological studies influenced and were influenced by current sociopolitical
climates. Within much occult writing, nonChristian
sources (including preChristian
philosophy and Hebraic Cabala) were incorporated into the Christian world view, and
affected Christian systems of angelic hierarchies and man's place within these
hierarchies. English occult thought was influenced by continental writers and
philosophers such as Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, Marsilio Ficino, Giovanni Pico della
Mirandola, and Leon Modena. One figure, in particular, featured strongly in many of the
demonological writings which were making their way into English occultism: Lilith.
When dealing with issues of political and sexual power, Lilith often appears as a focal
point for philosophers as they attempt to discover links between gender, demons, and evil.
This thesis examines the feminine demonic and the figure of Lilith in the art and literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, looking both at the occult
practioners John Dee, Simon Forman, and Edward Kelley, and at the literary traditions
that came out of that occult philosophy. It explores how Lilith manifests in literature
which tries to address anxieties surrounding the feminine demonic and sexuality, and the
implications of a demonic, political inversion. Lilith and the feminine demonic are seen
to be relevant to the works of Ben Jonson, James VI and I, Thomas Dekker, Robert
Greene, Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, and John Selden, with a final
chapter examining the evidence of Lilith in Milton's poetry, and in particular, Milton's
Paradise Lost.