Transmuting Words into Gold: Writing Failure in the Discovery of Guiana.

Sir Walter Ralegh's quest for El Dorado and gold mines in Guiana famously ended in failure. Yet his chronicle, The Discoverie of Guiana , and supporting works by George Chapman and Lawrence Keymis became quintessential texts of English imperialism, sustaining interest in colonization after decades of setbacks. This article considers how alchemical discourse reframed failure as a productive deferral of England's imperial destiny. Drawing on English sericonian alchemy, Ralegh, Chapman, and Keymis envisioned empire transforming dissolute adventurers into virtuous and industrious men who would advance the state's objectives and redeem Amerindians through good governance and Christianity. Metaphors of the chemical wedding downplayed Native dispossession by conceptualizing conquest and colonization as a benevolent, if initially violent, amalgamation of England and Guiana into a single polity. They urged Queen Elizabeth to fulfill providential history by accepting her role as alchemist of the imperial state. Though Ralegh could not transmute failure into success, the Guiana texts contributed to England's "White Legend" and legitimized the eventual profits of empire as just compensation for spreading Protestantism and benefitting the commonwealth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]