Luther too despised Copernicus and all that he represented so the reception was no better in the continental Protestant world.Įngland was really the only safe place to discuss these new ideas and it was in the circle of the Elizabethan mathematician and magus John Dee that discussion of Copernicus’s ideas flourished.
de Revolutionibus was to end up on the Index of banned books in 1616. This came under fire from Catholic theologians soon after its publication and found few supporters amongst continental mathematicians and philosophers, though many were willing to use the planetary tables based on the new model, which were decidedly superior to Ptolemy’s. Copernicus published his results on his death-bed in 1543 in de Revolutionibus, On the Revolution of the Celestial Spheres. This marked the beginning of the end for the whole Aristotelean world-view with the earth at the centre of the universe. Nicolas Copernicus had set out to reform Ptolemy’s earth-centred model of the solar system, but in the end he came up with a completely new picture, with the earth spinning on its axis once a day and orbiting the sun once a year. In the time of William Shakespeare, England was a hot-bed of Copernicanism. Discussion of Shakespeare’s astronomy goes back to the nineteenth century but there has been an upsurge in interest in the last ten years. The second theme is whether Shakespeare shows us that he knew about the new world-system of Copernicus. The first theme is Shakespeare’s knowledge of the night sky and how important it was to him in his plays. W.G.Guthrie, 1964, The Astronomy of Shakespeare ‘Nowhere is there to be found such an abundance ofĪstronomical allusions as occurs in the writings of Shakespeare’ L.McCormick-Goodhart, 1945, Shakespeare and the Stars Phenomena, carefully balanced in the treasure-chest of What one may call a knowledge of the heavenly ‘My personal impression is that Shakespeare possessed Orrin E.Harmon, 1898, The Astronomy of Shakespeare In but few instances are they made from a ‘Shakespeare’s allusions to the planets are very often madeĪstrologically.
Michael Rowan-Robinson, Museum of London / Chromolithography after Hombres y Mujeres celebres 1877 / Barcelona Museum
Portrait of William Shakespeare 1564-1616.
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