The Science of Shakespeare Read online

  Copyright © 2014 by Dan Falk.

  All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). To contact Access Copyright, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call 1-800-893-5777.

  Published simultaneously in the United States of America by Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin’s Press.

  Cover design by Julie Scriver.

  Cover illustrations: One of four extant brass astrolabes manufactured by the workshop of Georg Hartmann in Nuremberg in 1537. This one is part of the Scientific Instruments Collection of Yale University’s Peabody Museum of Natural History, wikimedia (foreground); “Venus and the Night Sky Over Mammoth,” John Lemieux, flickr.com (background).

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Falk, Dan, 1966-, author

  The science of Shakespeare : a new look at the playwright’s universe / Dan Falk.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-0-86492-418-6 (bound). ISBN 978-0-86492-796-5 (epub)

  1. Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 - Knowledge - Science.

  2. Science - England - History - 16th century.

  3. Science in literature.

  I. Title.

  PR3047.F34 2014 822.3’3 C2013-907595-X

  C2013-907596-8

  Goose Lane Editions acknowledges the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF), and the Government of New Brunswick through the Department of Tourism, Heritage and Culture.

  Goose Lane Editions

  500 Beaverbrook Court, Suite 330

  Fredericton, New Brunswick

  CANADA E3B 5X4

  www.gooselane.com

  contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  List of Illustrations

  Preface and Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Introduction

  Fig. 0.1 Copernicus’s illustration of a sun-centered universe (Image Select/Art Resource NY)

  Fig. 0.2 Frontispiece from Shakespeare’s First Folio (The Bridgeman Art Library, London)

  1. “Arise, fair sun…”

  A Brief History of Cosmology

  Fig. 1.1 The earth-centered universe (The Granger Collection, New York)

  Fig. 1.2 Frontispiece to the Sphaera Civitatis (The Granger Collection, New York)

  2. “He that is giddy thinks the world turns round…”

  Nicolaus Copernicus, the Reluctant Reformer

  3. “This majestical roof fretted with golden fire…”

  Tycho Brahe and Thomas Digges

  Fig. 3.1 Tycho Brahe’s diagram showing the location of the “new star” of 1572 (The Bridgeman Art Library, London)

  Fig. 3.2 Tycho Brahe’s “hybrid” model of the cosmos (The Granger Collection, New York)

  Fig. 3.3 Thomas Digges’s infinite cosmos (The Granger Collection, New York)

  4. “These earthly godfathers of heaven’s lights…”

  The Shadow of Copernicus and the Dawn of Science

  Fig. 4.1 Statue of Giordano Bruno (author photo)

  5. “… sorrow’s eye, glazed with blinding tears…”

  The Rise of English Science and the Question of the Tudor Telescope

  Fig. 5.1 Grounds of Syon House, west London (author photo)

  Fig. 5.2 Thomas Harriot’s full moon drawing (Lord Egremont)

  Fig. 5.3 Hans Hobein’s The Ambassadors (The Bridgeman Art Library, London)

  6. “Who is it that can tell me who I am?”

  A Brief History of William Shakespeare

  Fig. 6.1 Shakespeare’s birthplace, Stratford-upon-Avon (author photo)

  Fig. 6.2 Detail from Visscher’s panorama of London (The Bridgeman Art Library, London)

  7. “More things in heaven and earth…”

  The Science of Hamlet

  Fig. 7.1 Scene from the Atlas of the Principal Cities of the World, showing Helschenor and Hven (Donald Olson)

  Fig. 7.2 Tycho Brahe with the crests of members of his family (Donald Olson)

  Fig. 7.3 Memorial to Shakespeare and the First Folio, London (author photo)

  8. “… a hawk from a handsaw”

  Reading Shakespeare, and Reading into Shakespeare

  9. “Does the world go round?”

  Shakespeare and Galileo

  Fig. 9.1 Galileo’s drawings of the moon (Scala/Art Resource, NY)

  Fig. 9.2 Galileo’s drawings of Jupiter and its moons (The Granger Collection, New York)

  10. “Treachers by spherical predominance…”

  The Allure of Astrology

  11. “Fair is foul, and foul is fair…”

  Magic in the Age of Shakespeare

  Fig. 11.1 Frontispiece from Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus (© British Library Board/Robana/Art Resource, NY)

  Fig. 11.2 Johannes Kepler’s attempt to link the planets to the five platonic solids, from the Mysterium Cosmographicum (BPK Berlin/Art Resource, NY)

  12. “A body yet distempered…”

  Shakespeare and Medicine

  Fig. 12.1 Depiction of an anatomy lecture (The Bridgeman Art Library, London)

  13. “Drawn with a team of little atomi…”

  Living in the Material World

  14. “As flies to wanton boys…”

  The Disappearing Gods

  “They say miracles are past…”

  Conclusion

  Fig. 15.1 Frontispiece of Francis Bacon’s The Great Instauration (Image Select/Art Resource, NY)

  Notes

  Bibliography

  Index

  Also by Dan Falk

  About the Author

  list of illustrations

  Copernicus’s illustration of a sun-centered universe (Image Select/Art Resource NY)

  Frontispiece from Shakespeare’s First Folio (The Bridgeman Art Library, London)

  The earth-centered universe (The Granger Collection, New York)

  Frontispiece to the Sphaera Civitatis (The Granger Collection, New York)

  Tycho Brahe’s diagram showing the location of the “new star” of 1572 (The Bridgeman Art Library, London)

  Tycho Brahe’s “hybrid” model of the cosmos (The Granger Collection, New York)

  Thomas Digges’s infinite cosmos (The Granger Collection, New York)

  Statue of Giordano Bruno (author photo)

  Grounds of Syon House, west London (author photo)

  Thomas Harriot’s full moon drawing (Lord Egremont)

  Hans Holbein’s The Ambassadors (The Bridgeman Art Library, London)

  Shakespeare’s birthplace, Stratford-upon-Avon (author photo)

  Detail from Visscher’s panorama of London (The Bridgeman Art Library, London)

  Scene from the Atlas of the Principal Cities of the World, showing Helschenor and Hven (Donald Olson)

  Tycho Brahe with the crests of members of his family (Donald Olson)

  Memorial to Shakespeare and the First Folio, London (author photo)

  Galileo’s drawings of the moon (Scala/Art Resource, NY)

  Galileo’s drawings of Jupiter and its moons (The Granger Collection, New York)

  Frontispiece from Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus (© British Library Board/Robana/Art Resource, NY)

  Johannes Kepler’s attempt to link the planets to the five platonic solids, from the Mysterium Cosmographicum (BPK Berlin/Art Resource, NY)

  Depiction of an anatomy lecture (The Bridgeman Art
Library, London)

  Frontispiece of Francis Bacon’s The Great Instauration (Image Select/Art Resource, NY)

  preface and acknowledgments

  As it happens, my love of science and my fondness for Shakespeare date back to about the same time: I was ten or eleven when my parents took me to see Macbeth for the first time; and it was around then that they bought me a copy of H. A. Rey’s Know the Stars, a wonderful children’s astronomy book. (Rey was into monkeys as well as astronomy; with his wife, Margaret, he was the creator of Curious George.) I would later come to realize that Shakespeare understood a fair bit about astronomy. This was obvious from his frequent allusions to sunrises, eclipses, the pole star, and such; but for many years I gave the matter little thought. I also knew that Shakespeare and Galileo were born in the same year; but that fact is usually dismissed as little more than an item of trivia. (Sure, 1564 was a good year, but so what?)

  A turning point came in January 1996, when Peter Usher, an astronomer, presented a paper titled “A New Reading of Shakespeare’s Hamlet” at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society. (The meeting, as luck would have it, was held in my home city of Toronto.) But Usher’s work was clearly controversial, and his paper made only a mild splash; soon I was back to writing articles about black holes and the big bang. But in roughly 2010, with Shakespeare’s 450th birthday looming, I began to dig a little deeper—quickly realizing that I had only scratched the surface of a rich and under-explored topic. I soon discovered that a handful of respected Shakespeare scholars were beginning to investigate the playwright’s knowledge of science, and astronomy in particular. Another bout of luck: One of the scholars at the forefront of this research, Scott Maisano, was based in Boston, where I was living in 2011–12 while a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

  Sensing that “Shakespeare and science” would make an intriguing radio documentary, I pitched it to CBC Radio’s Ideas, and they gave me the green light. This book takes advantage of many of the interviews originally conducted for that project. As my research continued, the library became my second home; I audited university Shakespeare classes; and I went to as many Shakespeare productions as I could. I’ve lost track of the total number of performances, but they came in all varieties: indoor and outdoor; minimalist and lavish; no-budget, low-budget, and professional. I loved being a “groundling” for Henry V at Shakespeare’s Globe in London; I saw multiple As You Like Its, Twelfth Nights, and Richard IIIs; I took in a sadomasochist production of Antony and Cleopatra (let’s just say there was a lot of leather) and an “anarchist” production of Measure for Measure in which Barnardine was played by a hand puppet (which proved quite effective, though it restricted his movements somewhat).

  In The Science of Shakespeare, I examine the playwright’s world, taking a close look at the science of his day (bearing in mind that “science,” as we think of it today, was only just coming into existence). This subject—the birth of modern science—is fascinating in its own right, and I hope that readers will enjoy this work as a history of ideas, focusing on this remarkable period of discovery. I also investigate how these discoveries are reflected in Shakespeare’s work, and, more broadly, how they reshaped society at large. And so, even though much has been written on this period, and Shakespeare is one of the most-studied figures in history, I hope that, by exploring the connections between the playwright and this aspect of his world, The Science of Shakespeare offers something new.

  * * *

  This book could never have been written were it not for the scholars—too many to name—who have explored the subject matter within these pages in far greater depth than myself; their books and journal articles have been invaluable. I am particularly indebted to those researchers who allowed me to pester them (sometimes repeatedly) with all manner of Shakespeare questions, and especially those who allowed me to interview them, microphone in hand, for the CBC Radio documentary. This group includes Stephen Greenblatt at Harvard, John Pitcher at Oxford, Eric Mallin at the University of Texas–Austin, and Colin McGinn, recently retired from the University of Miami. Scott Maisano, who sat for more than one interview and answered numerous queries, is due a special note of appreciation. Peter Usher, whose work was one of the catalysts for this project, also deserves particular thanks. I am also grateful to numerous museum curators, tour guides, and librarians on both sides of the Atlantic. In London, meetings with Boris Jardine at the Science Museum, and Kevin Flude at the Old Operating Theater Museum and Herb Garret, were especially fruitful. Owen Gingerich and Donald Olson answered many of my questions on the history of astronomy, and Ray Jayawardhana pointed me in the right direction on the physics of supernovas. Many scholars have helped me without knowing it; David Levy’s work, for example, led me to numerous astronomical references in early modern English literature. I also thank the professors who welcomed me into their classrooms—a list that includes Gordon Teskey at Harvard, Peter Donaldson at MIT, and Christopher Warley and Jeremy Lopez at the University of Toronto.

  I am indebted to my tireless agent, Shaun Bradley of the Transatlantic Agency, and my very patient editor, Peter Joseph of St. Martin’s Press, as well as production editor David Stanford Burr and copy editor Terry McGarry. Jessica Misfud was invaluable in helping to gather the images that illustrate this work, and I owe special thanks to Marina De Santis for her Italian-to-English translation skills. Dr. Maisano generously took the time to look over portions of the manuscript, as did Bill Lattanzi and the ever-supportive Amanda Gefter. (Nonetheless, the reader should not presume that any of the researchers mentioned in the book would necessarily agree with any of the particular conclusions that I draw; and of course any mistakes are purely my own.) My family and friends stood by me at every step along this journey, and I couldn’t have succeeded without their love and support.

  Finally, in spite of all my hours in libraries, classrooms, and theaters, I make no pretense of being a professional Shakespeare scholar: I’m merely a journalist who is fascinated by science, intrigued by history, and—like millions of people around the world—in awe of Shakespeare’s achievement. I’ve used footnotes, endnotes, and a thorough bibliography to document my sources and to point the reader to further information; yet the book is aimed squarely at non-experts—those who marvel at the way that science has transformed our world, and those who enjoy reading and watching Shakespeare for the joy of it, as I do.

  By the Favor of the Heavens

  PROLOGUE

  Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England

  November 19, 1572

  6:05 p.m.

  “Father!”

  A middle-aged man turns to greet his son, one of a dozen schoolboys making their way out of the King’s New School and onto Chapel Lane. It’s getting cold; the man pulls his cloak to his chest. He’s thankful to be wearing his new fur cap rather than the felt one he’d had to make do with the previous winter. The boy, as full of energy as ever, doesn’t seem to mind the cold.

  “You don’t need to walk me home, Father. I’m almost nine years old.” The boy’s breath is visible in the crisp winter air.

  “Eight and a half is not ‘almost nine.’ But you’re right, William, you are a young man now,” the father replies. “It happens that I had some business at the church, and I was just on my way back. Let us make haste now, your mother and the children are waiting. I hope you didn’t give Master Hunt any trouble today?”

  “Master Hunt had to leave for Alveston, on account of his mother being sick.”

  The father is taken aback; usually he is the first to hear any news of that kind. “Is that so?”

  “But another teacher took his place,” the boy continues. “Master Jenkins. We still had to do all of that Latin grammar. But we also talked about the Bible, and the children in the upper form read a poem by Horace, and got to act out a scene from a Roman play.”

  “Horace was my favorite. Can you remember a few lines?”

  “Let me think.… Th
ere is nothing that the hands of the Claudii will not accomplish—”

  “Not in English. Horace isn’t meant to be read in English. In Latin, William, please.”

  “Oh, Father, school is out. And I don’t like Latin.”

  “Whether you like it is hardly the point. You must learn it to be a gentleman—and, for the next few years, to escape the birch. Now continue. In Latin.”

  “Um … nil Claudiae non perficient manus, quas et … um … benignus numine Iuppiter—”

  “Benigno numine,” his father interrupted, correcting the boy’s grammar. “It means ‘by the favor of the heavens.’ That’s enough for now. You did very well, William.”

  The pair turn from Chapel Street onto High Street. It is now growing dark; the long winter’s night stretches ahead. The full moon will provide some relief, but it is only just creeping above the eastern horizon. It has been a cloudy day—a little snow fell earlier—but as the wind blows, the clouds finally begin to part. In the southeast shines mighty Jupiter—the same Jupiter the Romans had put their faith in as they marched into battle; the same Jupiter that Horace had rhapsodized over. As they reach Henley Street, William stops and gazes upward.

  “What are you looking at, son?”

  “It’s something Master Jenkins told us about. He said there was a new star in the sky. He said he had been in Oxford yesterday, and everyone was talking about it.”

  The father lets out a hearty laugh. “Don’t be silly, William. I heard some talk of it also at the guild, but the reverend said it couldn’t be, and of course he is right. It could be a comet perhaps.”

  “But Father, Master Jenkins said it was a star. In the constellation of—the queen with the funny shape. The queen shaped like an ‘M.’”

  “Cassiopeia,” the father replies. In spite of himself, he turns northward to see what may be there. His son turns to follow his gaze. “The Lord doesn’t just create new stars, the way Mr. Smith hammers out horseshoes. God created the world thousands of years ago, and he doesn’t need to make improvements.”