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The sorcerer's pharmacy
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Wallace, Ella Faye. The sorcerer's pharmacy. Retrieved from https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/t3-nchm-eg77

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TitleThe sorcerer's pharmacy
NameWallace, Ella Faye (author); Kronenberg, Leah (chair); Power, Timothy (internal member); Connolly, Serena (internal member); Hollmann, Alexander (outside member); Rutgers University; School of Graduate Studies
Date Created2018
Other Date2018-10 (degree)
SubjectClassics, Botany, Magic, Theophrastus, Nicander, Lars, Pliny, the Elder
Extent1 online reource (130 pages : illustrations)
DescriptionHow do traditions of magic, both practical and literary, interact with texts about plant- and substance-based remedies in ancient Greece and Rome, and what role does genre play in the manifestation and transmission of these traditions? This is the question that my research seeks to answer, through the methods of lexicography, close reading, and comparison of magical texts with pharmaceutical literature from four significant authors. Each chapter represents a case study of one of these authors: Theophrastus and Nicander of Colophon, who wrote in Greek; and Pliny the Elder and Scribonius Largus, who wrote in Latin.
My analysis of the interplay of magic, remedy, genre, and botany in each author has revealed the development, through time, of what I term a pharmaceutical-didactic subgenre, created through the editorial decisions and selective curatorship of writers who sought to educate others in botanical and pharmaceutical topics, and, often, to display their breadth of knowledge in these subjects.
At the heart of this subgenre lies the problem of dangerous or othered information: to what extent is recording it reasonable or unreasonable, ethical or immoral, traditional or subversive? How is it justified or erased, spoken or unspoken? Under what circumstances does an author preserve the sorcerer’s pharmacy? It is my hope that this approach will, beyond the limits of this thesis, prove useful for the examination of other authors of this genre in the classical period, and for their reception in the medieval era.
NotePh.D.
NoteIncludes bibliographical references
NoteElla Faye Wallace
Genretheses, ETD doctoral
Persistent URLhttps://doi.org/doi:10.7282/t3-nchm-eg77
Languageeng
CollectionSchool of Graduate Studies Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Organization NameRutgers, The State University of New Jersey
RightsThe author owns the copyright to this work.
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