The Science of Shakespeare: A New Look at the Playwright's Universe
Shakespeare scanned the cosmos through Galileo’s telescope? Falk argues that the bard may indeed have drawn inspiration from the Italian astronomer’s science, and he uncovers tantalizing hints of that inspiration in Shakespeare’s late plays, most notably, the perplexing Cymbeline. Even in earlier plays—Troilus and Cressida, Hamlet—Falk ferrets out evidence suggesting that Shakespeare was responsively aware of the new Copernican universe. In contemplating the bleak conclusion of King Lear, Falk considers the stunning possibility that England’s greatest playwright felt the gravitational pull of an atheism incubated by scientific skepticism. But how could a London dramatist have learned of the new science and its revolutionary implications? Falk limns possible links between the poet and England’s most advanced scientific thinkers, including Thomas Digges, John Dee, and Thomas Harriot. Through a Whitehall connection, Shakespeare might even have encountered the radical Copernicanism of Giordano Bruno. This inquiry finally says little new about Shakespeare’s literary genius. But readers will thank Falk for putting Shakespeare and Galileo on the same well-illuminated world stage. --Bryce Christensen