Galileo's influence "That it has the form of a perfect globe we learn from the name which has been uniformly given to it, as well as from numerous natural arguments. For not only does a figure of this kind return everywhere into itself and sustain itself, also including itself, requiring no adjustments, not sensible of either end or beginning in any of its parts, and is best fitted for that motion, with which, as will appear hereafter, it is continually turning round; but still more, because we perceive it, by the evidence of the sight, to be, in every part, convex and central, which could not be the case were it of any other figure." Pliny the Elder, NATURAL HISTORY, CHAP. 2. — OF THE FORM OF THE WORLD. 77 AD. Errors Worldviews anomalies influences on Galileo Galileo's words other's beliefs Kuhn on scientific revolutions contemporary views Brecht's approach to the facts on Brecht by Eric Bentley Bentley's essay | appearances | fiction and truth | versions of the play | history
Claude Lorraine was a painter of epic art, painting by Lorraine, 1600s, 17th century.
"That was a matter of looking through lenses and believing your own eyes." 9 "there are social reasons why excessive self-reliance fails to get results." 10 Gestalt: The contemporary versus 16th century zeitgeist is a barrier to our understanding Galileo and the confusion that existed surrounding his discoveries on earth and in the sky.
Siry, chronology of material culture Bentley's analysis
Index to sources:	This painting by Giotto of the Last Judgment is a representation of early Renaissance concern for the symbolic and the spiritual qualities that transcend the materiality of earthly life.

"The Science Fiction of Bertolt Brecht"

by Eric Bentley, Drama critic.

"Brecht was all wrong about the seventeenth century in general and about Galileo Galilei in particular."

It is a paradox. The historical truth, rejected for its implausibility, has the air of an artifact, whereas the actual artifact, the play, has an air of truth."

Another paradox: only when a figure has become legendary is he or she a good subject for a history play."

Because the historical dramatist is concerned with the bits of history that have stuck in people's imagination, he may well find himself handling bits of pseudo-history that are the very products of people's imagination."

"After all, very much of our 'knowledge' of the past is based on fiction."

"So should we be prepared to see a modern, Marxist playwright distorting history in order to prepare young Communists for some future Battle of Russia?"

Next

The fiction of the facts.

. . . even for spectators who know that a history play is bad history, such a play might still seem to have some sort of special relevancy, a more urgent truth."

The present often intrudes upon the past:
The Church's canonization of Joan of Arc (1920s) after World War One!

"Like Saint Joan (GB Shaw) and all other good history plays, Galileo is about the playwrights own time.

"There are two Galileo plays here, both exist in their entirety, the version of 1938, and the version of 1947."

"He [Brecht] was a poet, but a poet in love with the idea of science, a poet who believed that his own philosophy was scientific:"

Bentley's essay | appearances | fiction and truth | versions of the play | history

Eric Bentley argues there are two plays: earlier and later versions due to history.

"In this respect, Galileo I is a 'liberal' defense of freedom against tyranny, while Galileo II is a Marxist defense of a social conception of science against the 'liberal' view that truth is an end in itself." {18-19}

Is Galileo or "the people" the real hero? {33-34} Is greatness possible for humankind? 42

"Galileo, according to Brecht, was one who at a crucial moment was disloyal to his 'side' in the 'the fight.' That can hardly be unimportant. The character will stand, as Brecht intended, as an exemplar of a certain kind of weakness. But will it not stand, even more impressively, as the exemplar of human greatness, a proof that greatness is possible to humankind? For that matter would the weakness be even interesting if it were not that of a great (which is to say: in many ways, a strong) man?" {41-42}

Bentley's essay | appearances | fiction and truth | versions of the play | history

Brecht’s 5 difficulties in writing the truth:

1 courage to write
2 keenness to recognize the truth
3 skill to manipulate truth as a weapon
4 judgement to effectively select who should be the bearers of the truth
5 cunning to spread the truth widely among many

“Fascism is not a natural disaster which can be understood simply in terms of human nature.” 139

“The great truth of our time is that our continent is giving way to barbarism… maintained by violence.” 146

Eric Bentley

Brecht and reading history

Bertolt Brecht's own words:

1930s
"Take care when you travel through Germany with the truth under your coat!"

1940s
"The atomic age made its debut at Hiroshima in the middle of our work. Overnight the biography of the founder of the new system of physics read differently."

The Essential Galileo

Bentley's essay | appearances | fiction and truth | versions of the play | history

 

ON THE PLAN AND METHOD OF READING HISTORIES,

HAT the reading of histories might be more fruitful, and the reader might bear off the an ample reward for his effort, three things are deemed necessary for every student:

1.) an established order, so that he does not read in a confused, vague, or desultory manner;

2.) intelligent judgment, so that he skillfully absorbs whatever he reads, and well discerns what things are to be selected;

3.) diligent industry, that he may systematically store up the things that he has picked out, of whatever sort, like a harvest into some barns. "

DIGORY WHEAR, Written; October 3, 1623.

Merchant's Chronology 1640-1992

Bentley's essay | appearances | fiction and truth | versions of the play | history

 

Herodotus

Verisimilitude, a measure of truth?
Historical Landscape
Historical methodology
History
History as a recovery
History as an endeavor to recapture past landscapes.

History of America's environment,
History of Science, plan of graduate course
History of Technology home page

• Mary Austin, Land of little Rain.
  
• Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote de la Mancha
  
• Gale Christianson, Greenhouse
• Alfred Crosby, Germs, Seeds and Animals.
• ......................, Columbian Exchange.
• Jared Diamond, Collapse
• Feynman, The Meaning of it All
• Finocchiaro, The Essential Galileo
• Galileo Galilei
• William Greider
• Garrett Hardin, Commonizing costs CC-PP Game
• Max Horkheimer's essay
• T. E. Hulme's view on art & language
• Norris Hundley, Jr., California Water.
• J. B. Jackson, A Sense of Place, A Sense of Time
• Michio Kaku, Quantum Futures
  ..............., Visions
• Evelyn Fox Keller, Century of the Gene
• Martin Kemp Visualizations: The nature book of Art and Science
• Robert Kennedy
• Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place
• Benjamin Kline
• Melvin Kranzberg, On laws of technology
• Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
• Kai Lee, Compass and the Gyroscope (adaptive management).
• Kai Lee, Compass and the Gyroscope
• Deirdre McCloskey on science, rhetoric and economic truths
• Bill McKibben, Death of Nature
• Ernst Mayr, One Long Argument
• .................., What Evolution Is.
• Carolyn Merchant
• Lewis Mumford, The Brown Decades
• Arnold Pacey, Meaning in Technology
  ....................., Technology in World Civilization
• Neil Postman, Communications revolution
• Carroll Pursell: White Heat
• Marc Reisner, Cadillac Desert
• Edward Said
• Simon Schama
• Joseph Siry
  • Marshes of the Ocean Shore
• Wallace Stegner
• Sandra Steingraber
• Stories, importance of
• Lewis Thomas
• James Watson, The Double Helix
• Spencer Weart
• Walt Whitman
• Terry Tempest Williams
• Donal Worster