The Science of Shakespeare (51 page)

Of course, science would never have been in danger of acquiring a more privileged status than the humanities if the two disciplines hadn't diverged in the first place—a rift whose negative consequences were famously decried by C. P. Snow in his essay
The Two Cultures
, more than fifty years ago. But the two cultures were not so far apart in Shakespeare's time, and all branches of “the arts” were involved in shaping our picture of the world. And Shakespeare himself shaped it more than anyone. One could argue, as Harold Bloom has, that it was Shakespeare who made us fully human. The playwright probed more deeply into human nature than any psychologist. Again, this does not mean that Shakespeare was a “scientist”—but he was certainly an acute observer of human nature, and had a mind every bit as disciplined as that of a scientist. Perhaps a better word is “explorer,” the term used by John Dover Wilson. A play like
King Lear
is very much an exploration, Dover argued, one “more dearly won and far more significant than that of a Shackleton or an Einstein.” But it's not a contest, and there is no need to imagine art and science in competition. I prefer to think of it as a partnership. Science has given us a new world, and Shakespeare illuminates our place within it.

 

Notes

PROLOGUE

Although a work of fiction, the Prologue “could have happened”: At least two Englishmen had sighted the new star by November 19, and word would have spread quickly. The moon was indeed full on that date, and its location in the sky—and that of the planets, Cassiopeia, and the supernova—is accurate. Hunt and Jenkins are the names of schoolteachers known to have taught in Stratford in Shakespeare's time. I have taken the liberty of imagining that Shakespeare's father, John, knew a decent amount of Latin; he may not have. (And the weather that evening is a matter of conjecture.)

INTRODUCTION

“The poet's eye…”
A Midsummer Night's Dream
(5.1.12–14).

“The new philosophy…”
quoted in Bate, p. 60.

“a scientific force…”
Boas Hall, p. 143.

“small Latin and less Greek”
www.bartleby.com/40/163.htm
.

“… shows little awareness or interest…”
Cartwright, p. 35.

“… took almost no interest in science”
Burns, p. 171. (Thanks to Scott Maisano for bringing this reference to my attention.)

“no sign of [the Copernican] revolution”
McAlindon, p. 4.

a bright new star lit up the night sky …
See Olson et al., “The Stars of Hamlet,” for a good overview of the 1572 appearance of “Tycho's star.”

 … a remarkably eventful period in terms of celestial drama
For a list of the astronomical events that took place in Shakespeare's lifetime, see Levy,
The Stars in Early Modern English Literature
, p. vii.

“a Ptolemaic conception”
Bevington,
Troilus and Cressida
, p. 162.

“may hint at the new heliocentric astronomy”
Bate, p. 62.

“… already discredited by the Copernican revolution”
Shapiro,
1599
, p. 259.

“cosmic imagination”
McAlindon, p. 4.

885,000 words
www.folger.edu/template.cfm?cid=862
.

1. A BRIEF HISTORY OF COSMOLOGY

“Arise, fair sun…”
Romeo and Juliet
(2.2.4).

known as “the heavens”
See, for example, Greenblatt,
Will in the World
, p. 183; Kermode, p. 109.

Shakespeare was “aware of the passage of time…”
Ackroyd, p. 264.

that the Globe was constructed in alignment with …
Ackroyd, p. 374.

As … Sacrobosco noted
This was the thirteenth-century French scholar Johannes de Sacrobosco. See Meadows, pp. 4–5.

“If the Lord Almighty…”
quoted in I. Bernard Cohen,
The Birth of a New Physics
, p. 33.

“presides over the whole scheme…”
Bate, p. 64.

“
I, thy Arthur, am…”
These are lines 65–70 of the masque, quoted in Fowler, p. 98. Known as
The Speeches at Prince Henry's Barriers
, it was sometimes called
The Lady of the Lake
. It was written in honor of the Prince of Wales, son of King James I, and performed in 1610.

Astraea, the “star maiden”
Fowler, pp. 99–100.

“filled with purpose…”
Principe, p. 21.

“The skillful ordering of the universe…”
quoted in Heninger, p. 8.

“We must lay before our eyes…”
quoted in Heninger, p. 11.

“… mystery, wonder, and promise”
Principe, p. 38.

“left most features…”
Dear, p. 28.

“a rich tapestry of interwoven ideas…”
Principe, p. 4.

“Oh worthy temple…”
quoted in Kocher, p. 155.

“there was never any good astronomer…”
quoted in Kocher, p. 156.

“was more often cited…”
Kocher, p. 256.

“an inherently religious activity”
quoted in Numbers, p. 105.

“Never was theology demoted…”
Principe, p. 36.

“… the historical situation”
Principe, p. 37.

2. NICOLAUS COPERNICUS, THE RELUCTANT REFORMER

“He that is giddy thinks the world turns round”
The Taming of the Shrew
(5.2.20).

“What sort of person was Copernicus?”
Gingerich,
The Book Nobody Read
, p. 29.

“The ancients had the advantage…”
quoted in Sobel, p. 27.

“He discusses the swift course…”
quoted in Sobel, p. 15.

 … Copernicus apparently did not
Rosen,
Copernicus and the Scientific Revolution
, pp. 110–11.

“neither sufficiently absolute…”
quoted in Kragh, p. 49.

“All the spheres revolve…”
quoted in Findlen, p. 655.

only a handful of manuscript copies
Gingerich,
The Book Nobody Read
, p. 31.

“… would compose a monster, not a man”
Danielson, p. 106.

“follow the wisdom of nature…”
quoted in Kragh, p. 49.

“What appear to us as motions…”
quoted in Sobel, p. 20.

“Remember that in the sixteenth century…”
Gribbin, p. 12.

“I think it is a lot easier to accept…”
Danielson, p. 116.

“The Aristotelian uniqueness…”
I. Bernard Cohen,
The Birth of a New Physics
, pp. 50–51.

“Had the Christian theologians…”
Johnson,
Astronomical Thought
, p. 94.

Pope Clement VII's personal secretary …
Principe, p. 49.

“that the world is eternal…”
quoted in Kragh, p. 42.

“So far as hypotheses are concerned…”
quoted in Rosen,
Copernicus and the Scientific Revolution
, p. 196.

“Holy Father, I can guess…”
Danielson, p. 104.

“claim to be judges of astronomy…”
quoted in Rosen,
Copernicus and the Scientific Revolution
, p. 185.

“Truly indeed does the sun…”
Danielson, p. 117.

“For who would place this lamp…”
quoted in Heninger, p. 47.

down from about eighty to thirty-four
Johnson,
Astronomical Thought
, p. 102; see also Appendix I in Gingerich,
The Book Nobody Read
.

“Copernicus did no more than a bit of tinkering…”
Heninger, pp. 46, 48.

“a kinship of geometrical methods…”
Cohen,
Revolution in Science
, p. 120.

“was presented explicitly…”
Dear, p. 33.

“… of an intellectual radical”
Heninger, p. 48.

“… an invention of later historians.”
Cohen,
Revolution in Science
, p. 106.

“his theory was widely read…”
DeWitt, p. 135.

as Arthur Koestler once described it
See Gingerich,
The Book Nobody Read
, p. vii.

“So far as our senses can tell…”
Danielson, p. 112.

“a staggering distance…”
Principe, p. 50.

by a factor of four hundred thousand
Kragh, p. 50.

“Now when we see this beautiful order…”
quoted in Kragh p. 53.

“to imagine anything more laughable…”
Montaigne (ed. Screech), p. 502.

“Nothing could be more obvious…”
Boorstin, p. 294.

“Was it still possible to believe…”
Kocher, p. 146.

“How astonishing if…”
Danielson, p. 112.

“No wonder, then…”
Danielson, p. 115.

“But, of course, there has never been…”
quoted in Kragh, p. 43.

“the alteration of the frame…”
I. Bernard Cohen,
The Birth of a New Physics
, p. 51.

3. TYCHO BRAHE AND THOMAS DIGGES

“This majestical roof fretted with golden fire…”
Hamlet
(2.2.301).

A lump of white-dwarf matter …
Seeds, p. 269.

“Amazed, and as if astonished and stupefied…”
quoted in Gingerich, “Tycho Brahe and the Nova of 1572,” p. 7.

“I noticed that a new and unusual star…”
quoted in Danielson, p. 129.

“the greatest wonder…”
quoted in Sobel, pp. 202–3.

“not some kind of comet or fiery meteor…”
Danielson, p. 131.

“locked up in strange tongues”
quoted in Harkness, p. 107.

“with more judgement…”
quoted in Harkness, p. 107.

 … among seventy-five men given a reprieve
Usher,
Shakespeare and the Dawn of Modern Science
, pp. 308–9.

“glasses concave and convex”
quoted in McLean, p. 149.

“Despite their seeming certitude…”
Panek, p. 30.

“many people were making…”
Dunn, p. 23.

he and Dee used the instrument together
Pumfrey, “‘Your astronomers and ours…,” p. 32.

Pumfrey presents a compelling case
Pumfrey, “‘Your astronomers and ours…,” page

“fit for an Umberto Eco novel”
Pumfrey, “‘Your astronomers and ours…,” p. 35.

“mend their bad ways…”
quoted in Pumfrey, “‘Your astronomers and ours…,” p. 38.

“Both showed them light…”
quoted in Fowler, p. 77.

“your astronomers and ours…”
quoted in Pumfrey, “‘Your astronomers and ours…,” p. 42.

“rare and supernaturall”
quoted in Pumfrey, “‘Your astronomers and ours…,” p. 50.

the metaphor of choice
See Ferris, p. 71; Sobel, p. 202; Danielson, p. 128.

“you can live peacefully…”
quoted in Falk, “The Rise and Fall of Tycho Brahe,” p. 54.

“This was truly a microcosm…”
quoted in Falk, “The Rise and Fall of Tycho Brahe,” p. 55.

“… the sheer bulk of the observations”
quoted in Falk, “The Rise and Fall of Tycho Brahe,” p. 57.

“the second Ptolemy”
quoted in Kragh, p. 51.

“divinely guided under…”
quoted in Margolis, p. 48.

“which authors have invented…”
quoted in Hale, p. 570.

“The question of celestial matter…”
quoted in Kragh, p. 53.

“… than for etiquette”
quoted in Falk, “The Rise and Fall of Tycho Brahe,” pp. 56–57.

Digges spoke of “that devine Copernicus…”
The first quote is from
http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Digges.html
; the second is from Danielson, p. 133.

“turning every twenty-four hours…”
quoted in Danielson, p. 133.

“as Mathematicall principles”
These Digges quotations are from Heninger, p. 49.

may well have conducted …
Rosen,
Copernicus and the Scientific Revolution
, p. 164.

“A Perfect Description of…”
This modernized version of Digges's book chapter is from Danielson, p. 135.

“nearly every writer…”
Johnson,
Astronomical Thought
, p. 180.

“infinitely up … in altitude”
quoted in Heninger, p. 51.

“… Englishman of the Renaissance”
Johnson,
Astronomical Thought
, p. 165.

“Even the most casual observation…”
Johnson,
Astronomical Thought
, p. 175.

“seems highly likely”
Gribbin, pp. 16–17.

“… the very court of celestial angels”
quoted in Gingerich,
The Book Nobody Read
, p. 119.

By Owen Gingerich's estimate
Gingerich,
The Book Nobody Read
, p. 121.