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Dr Ronald Gray, Fellow of Emmanuel College, lectured at Cambridge University on German Literature and Philosophy for 33 years, and now expands his article, ""Will in the Universe: Shakespeare's Sonnets, Plato's Symposium, Alchemy and Renaissance Neo-Platonism,"" published in Shakespeare Survey 59 (Cambridge University Press, 2006). This developed from his Goethe the Alchemist: A Study of Alchemical Symbolism in Goethe's Literary and Scientific Works, 1952, greeted on publication as ""a major contribution to Goethe Studies.""Diotima's vision of universal love in The Symposium is echoed not only in Castiglione's The Courtier but in alchemy, in its symbolical sense; these, together with Christian ideas combined in Shakespeare's imagination, strongly influenced the Sonnets. Where possible, Shakespeare inserted themes of the Sonnets in his plays. The result is a paradoxical combination of mysticism, sometimes erotic, in the Sonnets, with real situations and real lovers in both Sonnets and plays. The supreme realisation of the Dark Lady is Cleopatra, but the Lady also has mythic dimensions.

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Best known as the author of 'Kafka's Castle' (1956) and a number of highly regarded works on Goethe and Brecht, Ronald Gray tums his attention to Shakespeare in a rich and succinct little book, developed from his earlier article Will in the Universe: Shakespeare's Sonnets, Plato's Symposium, Alchemy and Renaissance neo-Platonism , which appeared in Shakespeare Survey 59 (2006). The short Preface scampers over current scholarly literature, raising points of disagreement or differences of perspective to be taken up later, and indicating politely that the author's interests lie elsewhere. Gray then embarks on his argument, which is wideranging, cogent, and refreshing both in content and presentation. A lifetime of reading supports this investigation into Shakespeare's dramatic and poetic exploration ofthe human experience of love, in all its ambiguity. One has a pervasive sense that Gray is writing about issues that really matter to him, not just as a scholar, but as a human being. - Laurence Raw, 'Shakespeare in Southern Africa' (January 2012), 75-77.

''Best known as the author of 'Kafka's Castle' (1956) and a number of highly regarded works on Goethe and Brecht, Ronald Gray tums his attention to Shakespeare in a rich and succinct little book, developed from his earlier article Will in the Universe: Shakespeare's Sonnets, Plato's Symposium, Alchemy and Renaissance neo-Platonism , which appeared in Shakespeare Survey 59 (2006). The short Preface scampers over current scholarly literature, raising points of disagreement or differences of perspective to be taken up later, and indicating politely that the author's interests lie elsewhere. Gray then embarks on his argument, which is wideranging, cogent, and refreshing both in content and presentation. A lifetime of reading supports this investigation into Shakespeare's dramatic and poetic exploration ofthe human experience of love, in all its ambiguity. One has a pervasive sense that Gray is writing about issues that really matter to him, not just as a scholar, but as a human being.''- Laurence Raw, 'Shakespeare in Southern Africa' (January 2012), 75-77.

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Ronald Gray lectured on German Literature and Philosophy at Cambridge University. He is the author of many books on Goethe, Brecht, Kafka and others, as well as a survey of twentieth century German literature. The present work developed out of his study of the influence of alchemy on Goethe's literary and scientific works, reissued by Cambridge University Press in its Library Collection of Books of Enduring Scholarly Value.

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