The Science of Shakespeare (61 page)

Tychonic system

Solomon's House

solstices

Somnium
(Kepler)

Sonnet 76 (Shakespeare, W.)

Sonnet 135 (Shakespeare, W.)

soul (conception of)

of planets

within sun

South Central Review

spectacles

spellings, non-standardized

Spencer, T. J. B.

Sphaera Civitatis
(Case)

spheres.
See also
music of the spheres

armillary

Brahe on

of stars

system of

Spiller, Elizabeth

spleen

spyglasses

The Starry Messenger
(Galileo)

stars.
See also
astrolabes; astrology; constellations; Tycho's star

Aldebaran

in
Antony and Cleopatra

brightness of

Capella

distance of

in
Hamlet

in
Henry IV, Part 1

Kepler's star

measuring altitude of

movement of

navigation by

plotting positions of

pole

spheres of

Star of Bethlehem

time and

Tycho's star (new star of 1572)

Stimson, Dorothy

Stjerneborg castle

storm, in
Othello

Stratford Festival (Ontario)

Stratford-upon-Avon

Holy Trinity Church in

location of

overview of

Shakespeare, W., departure from

Shakespeare, W., return to

Shakespeare's properties in

Stratioticos
(Digges, T.)

sublunar world

submarines

sun.
See also
heliocentric theory

as center of universe

Earth distance from

location of

movement of

observations of

role of

soul within

symbolism of

superlunar world

supernova

The Sure Fundamentals of Astrology
(Kepler)

surgeons and surgery

surveying

The Swerve
(Greenblatt)

Swift, Jonathan

Syon House

Tamburlaine the Great
(Marlowe)

Tassoni, Alessandro

Tate, Nahum

Taylor, Neil

telescope

invention of

possible use in Tudor England

use of

The Tempest
(Shakespeare, W.)

clocks and timekeeping in

Dee and

education in

epilogue from

influences on

magic in

production of

as science fiction

seminar on

The Theatre of God's Judgement
(Beard)

theodolites

thermometer

Thomas, Keith

Thompson, Ann

Thornton, Dora

Tillyard, E. M. W.

time.
See also
clocks and timekeeping

and light / shadow on stage

stars and

time machine, imaginary use of

Timon of Athens
(Shakespeare, W.)

Titus Andronicus
(Shakespeare, W.)

Tower of London

tragedies.
See also
individual plays

The Tragedy of Mariam, the Fair Queen of Jewry
(Cary)

traveling players

trepanning

Troilus and Cressida
(Shakespeare, W.)

magnetism in

social and cosmic order in

Ulysses's speech in

Tudor telescope, possibility of

Twelfth Night
(Shakespeare, W.)

education in

four elements in

music of the spheres in

Two Noble Kinsmen
(Shakespeare, W.)

The Two Cultures
(Snow)

Tycho.
See
Brahe, Tycho

Tychonic system

Tycho's star

Tyson, Neil deGrasse

Ulysses.
See Troilus and Cressida

universe.
See also
geocentric theory; geoheliocentric theory; heliocentric theory

age of

Earth as center of

heat death of the universe

infinite

size of

structure of

sun as center of

theories of

University of Wittenberg

Uraniborg castle

Ure, Peter

Ur
-Hamlet

Ursus.
See
Baer, Nicholai Reymers

Usher, Peter

on Copernican system

on
Cymbeline

on
Hamlet

Hamlet's Universe

“A New Reading of Shakespeare's
Hamlet
”

Shakespeare and the Dawn of Modern Science

Vanini, Lucilio

Vaughan, Alden T.

Vaughan, Virginia Mason

Vautrollier, Thomas

Venus

Venus and Adonis
(Shakespeare, W.)

editions of

publication of

spleen in

Vesalius, Andreas

villains

Villegaignon, Nicolas Durand de

Virgil

Aeneid

Visscher, Claes

Viviani, Vincenzo

void.
See
nothingness

Volpone
(Jonson)

voyages of discovery

Wallis, John

Walsingham, Francis

“wandering stars” (planets)

Warren, Roger

Waterhouse, Agnes

Weinberg, Steven

Wells, H. G.

The Well Spryng of Sciences
(Baker, H.)

White, John

Wilkins, George

will, of Shakespeare, W.

Will in the World
(Greenblatt)

Willer, Robb

Wilson, John Dover

Winchester, Bishop of

The Winter's Tale
(Shakespeare, W.)

astrology in

astronomical references in

atomism in

bear stage direction in

breeched in

final scene of

influences on

magic in

numbers in

as science fiction

witchcraft

history of

in
Macbeth

religion and

women

in Renaissance England

witchcraft and

written works by

worlds, plurality of

Wotton, Henry

Wren, Christopher

Wyatt's Rebellion

Yachnin, Paul

A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare
(Shapiro, J.)

yellow bile

zodiac, constellations of

 

About the Author

Dan Falk has written for
Smithsonian, New Scientist, Astronomy, Sky & Telescope, The Walrus,
and many other publications, and is the author of
In Search of Time
and
Universe on a T-Shirt.
He's been a regular contributor to Canadian public radio, and has won several international awards for his radio documentaries. Falk was a 2011–2012 Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He lives in Toronto.

*
Of course, my version included nine planets—the five known since antiquity, plus the four discovered in modern times. Today it would be eight, assuming that Pluto's demotion in 2006 has taken hold in the minds of twenty-first-century children.

*
Six undisputed examples of the playwright's signatures have survived, all on legal documents, and they vary from “Shakp” and “Shakspe” to “Shaksper” and “Shakspere.” The more familiar “Shakespeare” was, however, used in the first printed works to bear his name—his two narrative poems,
Venus and Adonis
and
The Rape of Lucrece
, published in 1593 and 1594.

*
This is a simplification, of course—the Jesuits, a Catholic religious order, were establishing some of Europe's best schools—but the two religions' differing view of the miraculous is worth noting. According to Church doctrine, Catholics were obliged to believe in continuing divine intervention in human affairs, while Protestants held the opinion that, as Shakespeare's Lafeu puts it in
All's Well That Ends Well
, “miracles are past” (2.3.3). See Dear,
“Miracles, Experiments, and the Ordinary Course of Nature”
; Kocher, p. 191; Johnson,
Astronomical Thought in Renaissance England
, pp. 149–50.

*
I say “amazingly” because, in general, supernovae are quite rare. Kepler's star of 1604 was the last known star to explode in our Milky Way galaxy.

*
The word “science” did not acquire something close to its modern meaning until roughly 1700, while the word “scientist” entered the language only in the 1830s. In the Renaissance, the study of the natural world was often called “natural philosophy,” though, as we will see, this covered a broader domain of inquiry than present-day science. (To complicate matters, the word “science”
was
in use—meaning, roughly, “knowledge.”) In the interest of readability, however, I will use the word “science,” anachronistic as it may be, to refer to those endeavors that would today be seen as scientific pursuits.

*
Or at least, they
seem
uncountable. Today we know that only about two thousand stars—a bit more for a person with perfect eyesight under ideal conditions—can be seen with the unaided eye at any one time.

*
As you might imagine, this seemingly light-hearted interlude has been subject to much scholarly analysis. Regarding the too-early sunrise, and its not-quite-right location, Arthur Humphreys (in the Oxford edition, p. 135) urges the reader not to worry about such “minor inconsistencies” which, after all, “pass unremarked on the stage.” The main function of the scene, says Humphreys, is to relieve tension; it also “creates the local atmosphere, marks the significant progress of the hours, and fixes attention on the Capitol.”

*
Venus usually outshines Jupiter; however, Venus can only be visible for, at most, a few hours after sunset or a few hours before sunrise. Jupiter, depending on its position in its orbit, can shine at any time of night.

*
Ptolemy lived in Alexandria, in Egypt, which at that time was a province of the Roman Empire. Ptolemy wrote in Greek.

*
Such comparisons have more or less disappeared today in the West, but note that in North Korea, the birth of Kim Jong-il was said to have been heralded by the appearance of a new star in the heavens.

†
Kirstin Olsen writes, “Ulysses' speech is sometimes taken to be a profession of Shakespeare's affinity for the Copernican system … But this passage is ambiguous at best; ‘this centre' could just as easily be the earth as the sun, and the sun is described as ‘Amidst the other' planets, which could mean at the center of all their orbits or in its traditional Aristotelian/Ptolemaic position between Venus and Mars.” (Kirstin Olsen,
All Things Shakespeare: An Encyclopedia of Shakespeare's World
, vol. 1, pp. 69–70)

*
Shapin also provides a sobering reminder of the Eurocentric nature of much historical investigation: “… the overwhelming majority of seventeenth-century people did not live in Europe, did not know that they lived in ‘the seventeenth century,' and were not aware that a Scientific Revolution was happening.” (Steven Shapin,
The Scientific Revolution
, p. 8)

*
Two books were particularly influential in initiating the “conflict” paradigm—John William Draper's
History of the Conflict between Religion and Science
(1874) and Andrew Dickson White's
A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom
(1896). The relationship between science and faith has been endlessly scrutinized since the publication of Darwin's
Origin of Species
in 1859, and remains a fascinating and complex subject. For those interested in a historical perspective, Ronald L. Numbers's introduction to
Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion
(2009) is a good starting point.