by DAN FALK
The Science of Shakespeare: A New Look at the Playwright’s Universe by Dan Falk
And Shakespeare wasn’t quite ready to retire in 1610; he had a few years to go, and would produce five more plays in that time (two on his own, including The Tempest, and three more in collaboration with colleagues). It is from this period that we find Cymbeline—and an even more tantalizing hint that the playwright may have been conscious of the new cosmology. This admittedly weird play, combining elements of ancient Britain and ancient Rome, seems to have been written in 1610—just late enough that Shakespeare could have read Galileo’s account of his telescopic discoveries, published in the spring of that year. Both Maisano and Pitcher have written in support of this hypothesis. “Jupiter” himself appears near the end of the play, while a stage direction calls for four ghosts to dance in a circle; could this be an allusion to the planet’s four newly discovered moons, described by Galileo?
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And so we find, not surprisingly, a multitude of references to astrology. But some of Shakespeare’s characters also speak out against such superstitions, as when Cassius declares, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings” (Julius Caesar 1.2.139–40), or when Edmond, in King Lear, ridicules those who blame their misfortune on the heavens, dismissing such astrological conceit as “the excellent foppery of the world” (1.2.104). As for religion, though Shakespeare often alludes to biblical stories, he never once uses the word “bible.” Nor do his characters put much faith in life continuing beyond death. He lived in an age of belief, yet a streak of skepticism runs through his work, especially toward the end of his career; in King Lear it reaches an almost euphoric nihilism. His characters often call upon the gods to help them, but their desperate pleas are rarely answered. Was Shakespeare a closet atheist, like his colleague Christopher Marlowe?
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