Shakespeare and Galileo: An In-depth Look at Their Impact

Today we study Shakespeare as one of the "classics." And yet, at the time he wrote and his plays were performed at the Globe Theatre in London, the idea of the plays was to entertain not only the upper classes, who sat in protected seats in the loges and balconies, but the ordinary people below. Even as some of the plays were tragedies and others were comedies, the most important plays- at his time, were the historical plays which were done as an homage to his Queen. One has to remember that most people at that time had limited education, if any at all. He history of England was either presented word-of=-mouth by minnesingers and tale tellers, or they were "taught" by means of plays that were not always historically correct, but were pleasing to the Crown.

One has to remember that France was, intellectually, far ahead of England, which would produce the plays of Racine, Moliere and Corneille already being popular- plays which not only criticized some of the manners of the people, but hinted at some revolutionary ideas about the class structure. England had Chaucer, of course, and would be blessed with Milton, one of its greatest poets, Samuel Butler, John Bunyan (among others)and John Dryden, while playwrights prior to Shakespeare included William Wycherly, John Gay (of Beggar's opera fame). The fact is, the humanities were beginning to be part of everyday life. In fact, it was 1685 before the public saw the "Fourth Folio of Shakespeare's works" (Grun Not paginated).

The fact is that Shakespeare is the outgrowth of the rise and advance of what is called "humanism." This meant not merely a greater concern about who we are and how we live, but the universe and its properties. "While physics thus foreshadowed the Industrial Revolution, alchemy slowly grew into chemistry...": (Durant 242).

However, if the new horizons made Shakespeare and his peers look within man's souls, scientists experimented with the unknown, something that- especially with Galileo Galelei, brought scorn and excommunication from the powerful Catholic Church. Galileo and Shakespeare were more or less contemporaries. But, from a standpoint of furthering knowledge, Galileo's experiments and discoveries were (and are) far more relevant today. "By the end of 1609 Galileo had turned his telescope on the night sky and began to make remarkable discoveries....In about two months, December and January, he made more discoveries that changed the world than anyone has ever made before or since" (O'Conner and Robertson 2).

One major difference is the mind set of these two men: Shakespeare wrote to please his Queen. Galileo went ahead with his theories despite warnings from the Church. "Galileo's belief in the Copernican System eventually got him into trouble with the Catholic Church. The Inquisition was a permanent institution in the Catholic Church charged with the eradication of heresies. A committee of consultants declared to the Inquisition that the Copernican proposition that the Sun is the center of the universe was a heresy. Because Galileo supported the Copernican system, he was warned by Cardinal Bellarmine, under order of Pope Paul V, that he should not discuss or defend Copernican theories. In 1624, Galileo was assured by Pope Urban VIII that he could write about Copernican theory as long as he treated it as a mathematical proposition" (Wilde 4).

Despite the two men being contemporaries (Galileo outlived Shakespeare by some thirty years) they really lived in different times. For example, "Galileo lived in a time of tremendous change. The Italian Renaissance in which Galileo lived was part of a larger movement that swept through Europe beginning in the 15th Century...Galileo Galilei and William Shakespeare were born the same year? Although there is no historical evidence that Galileo and Shakespeare ever corresponded with each other, it is interesting to think what they might have written....What would Galileo have thought of Hamlet? What would Shakespeare have written after Galileo told him of moons orbiting Jupiter? In this activity, students take on the role of either Galileo or Shakespeare and correspond with other students playing the historical counterpart" (PBS Teacher Source 6).

It is interesting to note that Shakespeare's plays were for "entertainment" and perhaps some enlightenment and also written for popularity among the masses.. Galileo's inventiveness and curiosity was more self-centered. It is obvious that he cared little what others thought, or even ordered him to do and to think. He was far less pliable, therefore, than Shakespeare who always coveted favors from the Royal Court. There are those who firmly believe that the Sixteenth Century was not a time for crucial thinking. "The sixteenth century was a poor time for philosophy; theology absorbed the active thinkers, ruling every roost, kept reason in its train" (Durant 881).

We can speculate, of course, what might have happened to two sharp minds- one lost in science, and the other in playwriting- if they had ever met. Well, someone thought it might be interesting to create a fictional meeting. "Shakespeare and Galileo is written for the Carpenter Science Theatre Company by Richmond actor and playwright Grant Mudge" (Tait 2).

There is another interesting factor one might consider more closely: reality of science, versus the imagination of a playwright. Shakespeare writes about Two Gentlemen of Verona, he talks about Romeo and Juliet, he delves into Danish court mystique and the Moor of Venice, plus Viennese society- without ever having visited or even been close to any of these places. Galileo did not "imagine" the orbit of the planets around the sun. He developed a telescope by which he was able to prove it (at least to his satisfaction).

Shakespeare wrote rather scathingly about Jewish moneylenders in "Merchant of Venice", yet he may never have even met a Jew, although there certainly was anti-Semitism in England and Europe during that time. One can also ascribe the hatred of the Church of the time toward new ideas that threatened what they had taught for centuries. And, at the same time, the specter of racism pops up now and then in Shakespeare's works not just Shylock, but Othello, and Calilban.

Again one has to return to the humanist evolution of the Sixteenth century, where science was beginning to disprove ancient notions, and writers like Shakespeare were able to look internally into what makes people do some of the things they do. Can one believe that Galileo predated the astronauts and Carl Sagan, while Shakespeare paved the way for Sigmund Freud and psychology> It certainly isn't impossible to think of those ideas.

If students today have one true problem with these two giants in their fields, it is that Galileo's theories make a lot more sense in today's technology. (We could never have reached space without Galileo and Copernicus' theories, nor Einstein's). But, why are we still so concerned about a playwright, dead some 400 years, who wrote in language that is almost a little foreign to us today. The reason is- both men, ion their own way, furthered civilization's thirst for truth and knowledge, as well as for entertainment and discovery. What if they ever really met- as the play mentioned earlier develops: Galileo, I would think, might well have said (in his Italian which surely required a translator for Shakespeare): "To be or not to be makes more sense than you might think...I would maybe have added 'To Think or Not to Think...My Church would have been angry, but your Queen wouldn't have understood it." And Shakespeare, through his interpreter might have asked Galileo to explain this "thing" with feathers falling at the same rate. We can let our imaginations roam, of course, but without these two men, we today would be much poorer, and perhaps not as scientifically and intellectually advanced.

REFERENCES:

Durasnt, Will: The Reformation New York: Simon & Schuster (1957)

Grun, Bernard: The Timetables of History New York: Simon & Schuster (1975).

O'Conner, J.J. and Roberson, E. F. "Galileo Galilei"

www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/ ~history/Mathematicians/Galileo.html

PBS Teacher Source: "Galileo and Shakespeare"

www.pbs.org/teachersource/thismonth/oct02/index1.shtm

Tait, Nancy: "Shakespeare and Galileo-A Carpenter Science Theatre Company Play at the Science Museum of Virginia"

www.smv.org/news/RELS/SMV_Shakespeare_and_Galileo.htm

Wilde, Maggie: "The Galileo Project" galileo.rice.edu/