Brecht's Life of Galileo: Socio-Political Considerations
Brecht's Life of Galileo: socio-political considerations
Together with Mother Courage, the Good Man of Sezuan and the Caucasian Circle, Brecht's Life of Galileo is considered one of his most important dramatic works. For those not familiar with it, I would like to begin with a brief summary of the play in its best known and last version of 1955.
The opening scenes show a middle-aged Galileo in Padua in the Republic of Venice, where his teaching obligations earn him a meager income and largely restrict his time for research. He decides to move to the less liberal, but more luxurious court of Florence. Using the telescope for astronomical observations, he can experimentally confirm the Copernican theory of the solar system. This brings him into conflict with the official Church position, that endorses the aristotelian view and condemns the copernican system by placing it on the index in March 1616. Galileo wisely follows the Inquisition's advice to keep silent and to direct his research efforts to less dangerous endeavours. When he learns eight years later, in 1623, that the Pope is dying and that the mathematician Cardinal Barberini will succeed him, he believes that more enlightened times return, and he resumes his astronomical research. Ten years later in 1633, however, he is forced to recant his findings in support of a heliocentric solar system. The final scene depicts Galileo as an embittered, halfblind old man, who lives with his daughter Virginia under the close supervision of the Inquisition. His former disciple Andrea visits him, and Galileo gives him a secretly produced copy of his Discorsi. But when Andrea praises him enthusiastically for recanting in a well-calculated service to scientific progress, Galileo rejects the flattering interpretation and mercilessly condemns himself for having betrayed his profession, or rather, the role he could have played as a scientist. The drama ends on a more positive note, as Andrea crosses the border unharmed
Together with Mother Courage, the Good Man of Sezuan and the Caucasian Circle, Brecht's Life of Galileo is considered one of his most important dramatic works. For those not familiar with it, I would like to begin with a brief summary of the play in its best known and last version of 1955.
The opening scenes show a middle-aged Galileo in Padua in the Republic of Venice, where his teaching obligations earn him a meager income and largely restrict his time for research. He decides to move to the less liberal, but more luxurious court of Florence. Using the telescope for astronomical observations, he can experimentally confirm the Copernican theory of the solar system. This brings him into conflict with the official Church position, that endorses the aristotelian view and condemns the copernican system by placing it on the index in March 1616. Galileo wisely follows the Inquisition's advice to keep silent and to direct his research efforts to less dangerous endeavours. When he learns eight years later, in 1623, that the Pope is dying and that the mathematician Cardinal Barberini will succeed him, he believes that more enlightened times return, and he resumes his astronomical research. Ten years later in 1633, however, he is forced to recant his findings in support of a heliocentric solar system. The final scene depicts Galileo as an embittered, halfblind old man, who lives with his daughter Virginia under the close supervision of the Inquisition. His former disciple Andrea visits him, and Galileo gives him a secretly produced copy of his Discorsi. But when Andrea praises him enthusiastically for recanting in a well-calculated service to scientific progress, Galileo rejects the flattering interpretation and mercilessly condemns himself for having betrayed his profession, or rather, the role he could have played as a scientist. The drama ends on a more positive note, as Andrea crosses the border unharmed