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The Upright Thinkers by Leonard Mlodinow A book for science lovers and for anyone interested in creative thinking and in our ongoing quest to understand our world. Learn more | See similar books
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I had never before considered the scientific worldview of William Shakespeare. Like almost every other American I had read the Bard’s great tragedies in high school and college—Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, and Hamlet—and only gained an appreciation of his comedies and historical works later in life. One of the things I learned early on, however, if one wanted to understand the real history of Julius Caesar or King Richard II, or name the historical actor of your choice don’t rely on Shakespeare for knowledge. He was a playwright focused on producing engaging, successful theater aimed at the masses.
Although this is an interesting and enlightening book with more to offer than I initially though, I might say about Shakespeare and science. At no point in the past have I ever thought of his plays as exemplars of understanding about the Scientific Revolution then under way when he wrote them. True, in the early 1600s Galileo was turning his telescope on Jupiter and published "The Starry Messenger"; somewhat before that Copernicus was developing a new model of the solar system that replaced the Ptolemaic geocentric explanation. The ferment in science was palpable. Shakespeare may not have been educated at Cambridge or Oxford, but according to author Dan Falk he certainly took in the intellectual milieu around him.
Did the Scientific Revolution find expression in the writings of Shakespeare? That is the core question posed by Falk. He answers it in the affirmative. Some of the connections are well developed, and some are so much speculation, but the reality is that if one reads his plays seeking evidence of a reflection of the scientific ferment around him it is there in abundance. The lion’s share of the book teases out these connections.Read more ›
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As other reviewers have said, this book’s title doesn’t reflect well its contents. It has little about the science of Shakespeare. But it has some on his astronomy and especially the astronomy of his time and the philosophical thinking that went along with those discoveries and scientific develops at the time. If you like that period of history, and science, and Shakespeare and those around him then you will likely enjoy the book. I did very much and hope to find time to read it again. I do though have a major criticism of his book though and that is he should have just avoided the Shakespeare authorship question. This is because the topic is far more complicated and sophisticated and it’s obvious that he hasn’t the slightest knowledge about. And so he came off as extremely simple and foolish minded on the topic. If he knew how far off base he was on it he would be embarrassed. And if he ever did try to battle against the anti-Stratfordians as he mentioned then he would find himself soon crawling under a table to hide as mainstream scholars themselves have done. What is especially ironic is that he certainly admires the likes of those that thought for themselves and questioned the ideas and beliefs of the time—Copernicus, Tyco Brahe, Kepler, Hariot, Galileo, etc. and he often quotes their attitudes of open mindedness. For instance, he quotes from the book Castle of Knowledge “first impressions can be deceiving; that the truth sometimes requires us to abandon our preconceptions…..” “be not abused by their authority, but ever more attend to their reasons, and examine them well, ever regarding more what is said, and how it is proved, than who said it; for authority often times deceives many men.Read more ›
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There’s always room for books aimed at the general public examining some obscure element of Shakespeare’s life or thought. Since we don’t know much about his life, or his thought – other than through the plays – there’s plenty of speculation in books like this. Some succeed in being interesting and thought-provoking; and some don’t.
Dan Falk’s The Science of Shakespeare: A New Look at the Playwright’s Universe (Amazon.com, Amazon UK) looks at Shakespeare in the context of the “scientific revolution” that took place following the Renaissance. Born the same year as Galileo, Shakespeare lived at a time when a new understanding of the universe, and of certain types of what we now call science, was taking shape. Falk, a science writer and Shakespeare buff, sets out to juxtapose the two: the new science of the 16th and early 17th centuries, and the plays of Shakespeare. As often with books like this, there is a lot of trying to fit a not-quite-round peg into a square hole.
First, the title is misleading; the book is not really about “science” as such; it is mostly about astronomy, and the history of the changes from the geocentric model of the universe to the heliocentric model, ushered in by Copernicus. Falk discusses this at length, going through the genealogy of universe revolutionizers from Copernicus to some English astronomers that Shakespeare may have encountered, either in the flesh or through books. There are many tenuous suppositions, but that’s the nature of most books about Shakespeare. He “may have” met so-and-so; he “might have” read a certain book; “perhaps” he knew a specific person.Read more ›
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