Galileo

by Bertolt Brecht

Other authorsEric Bentley
Paper Book, 1991

Description

Arguably Brecht's greatest play, A Life of Galileo charts the seventeenth century scientist's extraordinary fight with the church over his assertion that the earth orbits the sun. The figure of Galileo, whose 'heretical' discoveries about the solar system brought him to the attention of the Inquisition, is one of Brecht's more human and complex creations. Temporarily silenced by the Inquisition's threat of torture, and forced to abjure his theories publicly, Galileo continues to work in private, eventually smuggling his work out of the country. Brecht's beautiful depiction of the explosive str

Status

Available

Call number

832/.912

Publication

New York : Grove Weidenfeld, 1991.

Media reviews

"Das Leben des Galilei" ist ein Theaterstück des deutschen Dramatikers Bertolt Brecht aus dem Jahr 1938. Das Stück untersucht das Leben und die Arbeit des berühmten Wissenschaftlers Galileo Galilei im frühen 17. Jahrhundert, einer Zeit, die von bedeutenden wissenschaftlichen Fortschritten und
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Konflikten mit religiösen Autoritäten geprägt war.

Das zentrale Thema ist der Konflikt zwischen wissenschaftlichen Entdeckungen und religiösen Dogmen. Galileis Teleskopbeobachtungen der Jupitermonde und seine Unterstützung für das heliozentrische Modell des Sonnensystems stellen das vorherrschende geozentrische Weltbild der katholischen Kirche in Frage.

Angesichts des Widerstands der religiösen Autoritäten steht Galilei vor einem moralischen Dilemma: Er muss seine wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnisse widerrufen oder sich der Verfolgung stellen. Das Stück beleuchtet die Spannung zwischen intellektuellem Streben und gesellschaftlichen Zwängen und hebt die ethischen Entscheidungen hervor, die der Einzelne im Spannungsfeld zwischen wissenschaftlicher Wahrheit und politischer Macht trifft.

Brechts "Das Leben des Galilei" ist bekannt für seine Verwendung von historischem Materialismus und epischen Theatertechniken. Das Stück will kritisches Denken und die Auseinandersetzung mit dem Publikum provozieren, indem es historische Ereignisse in einer Weise darstellt, die zur Analyse ihrer sozialen und politischen Auswirkungen anregt. Galilei ist eine komplexe Figur, die den Kampf um den wissenschaftlichen Fortschritt und die moralischen Dilemmata verkörpert, die mit der Infragestellung festgefahrener Überzeugungen einhergehen.
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User reviews

LibraryThing member LisaMaria_C
The Foreword to one edition I read of this play (admiringly) calls Brecht's nature "cold, clinical" and tells us he consciously rejected what he called "Aristelian" drama that seeks its audience to feel empathy for the characters. Instead Brecht embraced alienation. He was also famously a Marxist
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and consciously sought to imbue his works with that philosophy. All things I'd ordinarily find off-putting. But then the Foreword goes on to call Galileo not just Brecht's "greatest" play but also "his most atypical and humanistic work."

Which may explain why overall I liked it. Not that Brecht's Galileo isn't in his way alienating. He's more anti-hero than hero, complex and definitely designed to make you feel ambivalent about his actions. This play is about a lot more than scientific truth versus religious dogma. That's embodied in two of my favorite lines from the play. The first, said by Galileo: As much of the truth gets through as we push through; we crawl by inches. And the play overall seems to condemn Galileo for not pushing enough. And then there's these trenchant lines, that condemn not so much an individual as society:

Andrea: Unhappy is the land that breeds no hero.

Galileo: No, Andrea. Unhappy is the land that needs a hero.
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LibraryThing member Devil_llama
This play breaks most of teh rules of American theatre (but, it's Brecht, so I state that which is redundant). It demonstrates what can be great about German theathre. It is talky, with long expositional speeches. It does not establish the high stakes conflict immediately or quickly. It is very
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erudite. It is well worth reading, as a dramatization of the life and heretical science of Galileo Galilei. It doesn't attempt to whitewash Galileo, make him a gold-plated hero with no flaws; instead, it tries to put his flaws in the context of a time and a place peopled by real human beings, not cardboard cut outs. And, unlike so many plays about science, the playwright does the hard work to get the science right. Well worth the time to read and think about.
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LibraryThing member kidzdoc
The 16th & 17th Italian physicist and mathematician Galileo Galilei is widely considered to be the founder of modern science, due to his adoption of the scientific method in conducting experiments about gravity, motion and the movement of the planets in space, aided by the development of the
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telescope in the early 17th century. He also fell afoul of the Catholic Church during the Inquisition, due to his rejection of Aristotle's geocentric model in 1610, in which the earth was a fixed object around which the other planets, including the sun, revolved, in favor of the heliocentric model proposed by Nicolas Copernicus in 1543, which placed the sun at the center of the solar system. The Church opposed this pronouncement, as it apparently contradicted several Biblical passages that implied that the sun moved in space, cast doubt upon the location and existence of Heaven, and thus was a threat to Christianity and, more importantly, the authority of the Church during a period of widespread suffering and subjugation of millions of believers. Although the heliocentric model was confirmed by Jesuit astronomers who also had the benefit of using telescopes to confirm Galileo's findings the Church declared that heliocentrism was heretical in 1616, banned any publications that supported it, and Pope Paul V specifically ordered Galileo "to abstain completely from teaching or defending this doctrine and opinion or from discussing it...to abandon completely...the opinion that the sun stands still at the center of the world and the earth moves, and henceforth not to hold, teach, or defend it in any way whatever, either orally or in writing."

Galileo kept quiet from 1616 through 1624, after Maffeo Barberini, a mathematician, became the new pope, Urban VIII, in 1623. Galileo assumed that the pope would support heliocentrism, based on prior interactions with him, but Urban VIII, under pressure exerted by members of the Inquisition and Galileo's decision to publish his work in Italian, the language of the common people, was ultimately convinced to withdraw his support and protection of the famed mathematician. In 1632 Galileo was called to Rome to testify in front of the Inquistion, and once he arrived the following year he was found guilty of heresy. Under threat of torture and death he publicly recanted his heliocentric beliefs, and he was sentenced to house arrest for the remainder of his life. Although he was forbidden to write any works which fell afoul of the Church and despite going blind in 1638, Galileo did surreptitiously write a manuscript, "Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Relating to Two New Sciences", which was published in the Netherlands to avoid censors, and became critical to the development of modern physics.

The German playwright Bertolt Brecht wrote "Life of Galileo" in 1938, while he lived in exile from Nazi Germany, which he fled in 1933 after Adolf Hitler rose to power. The play starts in 1610, as Galileo receives word of the newly invented telescope from a young Dutch man who wishes to study under him, and ends just prior to his death. At the time he was a professor at the University of Padua, whose salary did not meet his means, which forced him to take on students outside of the classroom in order to earn a decent living. Although he was well known and widely respected he, along with other modern scientists and thinkers, was viewed unfavorably by the Catholic hierarchy, but his position in the university afforded him the protection he needed to conduct his experiments. Brecht portrays Galileo as a man singularly driven to pursue Truth using the scientific method, irregardless of his daughter's future and happiness, the advice of others to avoid antagonizing the Church and members of the Inquisition, and his own health, as presumably his blindness was largely due to him repeatedly viewing the sun to study its position in space and the spots on its surface. It is not an anti-religious play, but one that contrasts science and reason with authority and dogmatism.

I read the script of "Life of Galileo" after I saw the production of it at The Young Vic in London last month, which was translated by John Willett, directed by Joe Wright, and starred Brendan Cowell as Galileo. Although the play was true to the act-less script it omitted one or two scenes, and featured several irreverent skits, including one particularly amusing one set to music. The round stage was surrounded by the audience, but several paying customers sat in the middle of the set, as actors moved around them, forcing them to move repeatedly throughout the performance.

"Life of Galileo" was a thoroughly entertaining and enjoyable performance, and after seeing three outstanding renditions of Bertolt Brecht's plays in London in the past nine months, "The Threepenny Opera", "The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui" and "Life of Galileo", I am eager to see the remainder of this brilliant playwright's works.
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LibraryThing member antao
"Galilei: Ja, wo ist sie jetzt? Wie kann der Jupiter angeheftet sein, wenn andere Sterne um ihn kreisen? Da ist keine Stütze im Himmel, da ist kein Halt im Weltall! Da ist
eine andere Sonne!
Sagredo: Beruhige dich. Du denkst zu schnell.
Galilei: Was, schnell! Mensch, reg dich auf! Was du siehst, hat
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noch keiner gesehen. Sie hatten recht!
Sagredo: Wer? Die Kopernikaner?
Galilei: Und der andere! Die ganze Welt war gegen sie, und sie hatten recht. Das ist was für Andrea! Er läuft außer sich zur Tür und ruft hinaus: Frau Sarti! Frau Sarti!
Sagredo: Galilei, du sollst dich beruhigen!
Galilei: Sagredo, du sollst dich aufregen! Frau Sarti!
Sagredo dreht das Fernrohr weg: Willst du aufhören, wie ein Narr herumzubrüllen?
Galilei: Willst du aufhören, wie ein Stockfisch dazustehen, wenn die Wahrheit entdeckt ist?
Sagredo: Ich stehe nicht wie ein Stockfisch, sondern ich zittere, es könnte die Wahrheit sein."

In "Das Leben des Galilei" by Bertold Brecht

I watched this play in 2006 in Lisbon at Teatro Aberto starring Rui Mendes as Galileo. There was a repartee between Galileo and Arturo Ui that I'll never forget. Right at the beginning, Galileo and Arturo have two simple, and unforgettable lines. When Andrea remarks, "Infeliz a terra que não tem herois" ("Unhappy the land that has no heroes"/"Unglücklich das Land, das keine Helden hat!") Galileo retorts, "Infeliz a terra que necessita de herois" ("Unhappy the land that needs heroes."/"Unglücklich das Land, das Helden nötig hat.") And from Arturo Ui, comes the searing "Porque apesar do mundo ter parado o cabrão, a puta que o deu à luz está novamente com o cio" ("For though the world has stopped the bastard, the bitch that bore him is in heat again."/"[...] Der Schoß ist fruchtbar noch, aus dem das kroch." taken from the play "Der aufhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo Ui").

I was absolutely mesmerized! I was so mesmirized that I had to buy the play in German which I did two years later (it was out of stock on Amazon at the time). The version of "The Life of Galileo" that the Teatro Aberto presented in 2006, with the reduced title by which it is better known, is based on the second of the three versions.

The general belief in a geocentric solar system was based on Aristotlean writings and Ptolemeic astronomy and was the generally accepted science when the Church was first formed. The Pythagoreans had proposed the idea of a heliocentric solar system around 600 B.C., but it was not accepted science at that time, nor six centuries later. The geocentric idea influenced early Christian theology, as did the writings of the ancient Greek philosophers. Unfortunately, what the Church did was change the Greek idea of seeking truth and knowledge through intellectual thought and science into seeking truth and knowledge within the scripture only. And thus, the Dark Ages began. Anyway, the heliocentric theory was revisited by astronomers and mathematicians throughout the next two millenia, until it was finally accepted, and through no simple means. Overcoming an authoritative figure that has huge political influence and control over many of the universities is no small task, not to mention the mathematical, scientific, and equipment challenges. the trouble with the heliocentric model at the time of galileo's discoveries was that there was no coherent theory of gravity until newton's publication of principia in 1783. given that matter tends to "fall" toward the centre of the earth, it's quite intuitive to theorise that the earth is the centre of the universe. Although galileo's evidence for a heliocentric model (ie. phases of venus, topography of the moon and satellites of Jupiter) was quite compelling , in the absence of a theory of gravity it wasn't complete enough to debunk the geocentric model. In other words, the objections to heliocentrism weren't necessarily ignorant and arrogant ; there was also a scholarly debate that, had merit on either side.

Two points should be made here:

1) Galileo's telescopic obvservations had nothing whatsoever to do with his conviction on heresy charges. They had to do with his publication of a book called "Dialog on the Two Chief World Systems," in which he was judged to have violated the pope's order to give a fair account of both the heliocentric (Sun-centered) and geocentric (Earth-centered) systems, a concept he personally submitted to the pope before going ahead with the project.

Note that Galileo was not prohibited from discussing the virtues of the heliocentric system. The concern was that the system was unproven, and that certain passages of scripture, in their literal sense, suggested the geocentric theory. Cardinal Bellarmine, who was one of the principal officials in the affair, acknowledged in writing that the Church's rejection of heliocentricity was provisional, and based on the scientific data available at the time, and might have to be changed in the future if further evidence emerged . And in fact, we now know that many aspects of the Galilean-Copernican theory were false, and very much so. In some ways, the Ptolemaic system was more correct, including variable orbital velocities, something eliminated from the Copernican system.

2) Copernicus was never persecuted for his book promoting the heliocentric theory, and his book was not censored by the Catholic Church, circulating freely throughout Europe for many decades before Galileo's run-in with the pope. Copernicus, by the way, dedicated his book to the pope, and he himself was a cleric with minor orders. After Galileo's conviction, only one sentence was stricken from the work.

Personally, I'm thankful for the Church's scientific brilliance and its contribution to humanitarian thought and advancement. I'm also thankful for some of the philosophical and spiritual wisdom that comes from religion. But the Catholic Church wasn't alone in suppressing scientific thought, and not all evil and closed-mindedness comes from religion. Many an authoritarian atheist has succeeded in suppressing and killing millions and squashing ideas that challenge their authority. And then there are always the economic interests that suppress or support scientific findings.

The Catholic church at the time was in the tricky position of wielding both secular and spiritual authority. Although interpretation were made they also tended to believe that the very best sources of information (whether biblical, philosophical or practical) were ancient. Unfortunately a lot of it was also inaccurate but people still tended to believe it *and* allowed it to shape their perceptions. What complicated things was the prominent faith component of Christianity that made doubting such ancient wisdom sinful and dangerous. I recommend people read a Beastiary to see what kind of mind-set they were working from at the time. Galileo was one of those people that allowed others to look at the universe with fresh eyes and thus encourage modern, scientific thought. It is also interesting to note that Galileo wrote Sidereus Nuncius in New Latin rather than Medieval Latin. This meant that a wider audience was reached, rather than just the clergy or the rich well educated upper classes. Everyday people could read his work, which made Galileo one of the first science communicators of the age, and this loss of control of the masses frightened the Catholic church nearly as much as the knowledge contained within his work.

Copernicus's work was actually used in the development of the Gregorian calendar. the Catholic Church had not been vehemently opposed to science for centuries. In the 13th century, there had been many disputes about the relationship between those that wished to follow the natural philosophy of Aristotle and those who rigidly stuck to scripture to explain everything under the sun and the idea that scientific speculation and its logically based predictions were futile as God could anything he wanted at any time. However, William of Ockham produced a brilliant solution to the problem, he declared that God was indeed omnipotent and could do anything he wanted but he had also given man the logical mind to predict these outcomes even though they were inevitably fallible. It lead to a divorce of faith and reason - Science was in man's attempt to guess the will of God but it was not an attempt to declare that will so don't persecute them as they're only guessing. Early Scientists worked under this restriction for centuries, by modern standards it seems ridiculous but it gave early scientists plenty of leeway. All they had to do to avoid persecution was explain that their work was only speculation and dedicate it to the Pope. Galileo choose not to do this, instead he mocked the arrangement and this was how he fell foul of the church. It was an error as it did not advance the cause of science, he wasn't in a position to mock his critics as he did not have a convincing proof of his heliocentric system, he didn't even accept Kepler's groundbreaking work. It takes time for new scientific ideas to break through and heliocentricism wasn't widely accepted until after Newton.

Bottom-line: What really infuriated the Pope was that he used the telescope to inspect the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel a little more closely, and saw that Michael Angelo had depicted God running away with his trousers down. It's in the second from last "panel" as you look from the entrance of the chapel. Needless to say, he flew into a rage and blamed Galileo for inventing such a blasphemous object. "It is not for mankind to dwell upon images of God's buttocks" he is reported to have said. However, he unable to do anything about it as Rome was in the middle of a ladder shortage, so the ceiling had to remain as it was. So Galileo was made a scapegoat.
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LibraryThing member ponsonby
I have the Hoard Brenton edition of this play, as performed at the National Theatre in London in 1980. Superbly spare, sinewy language with a constant flow of ideas. A wonderful dramatisation of the struggle between superstition and scientific truth.
LibraryThing member jorgearanda
It is at least unusual for dramatists to put scientists and the social implications of research in center stage. Bertolt Brecht -an unusual dramatist if there’s any- did just that, economically and elegantly, in his play Galileo. The scope of the play is incredibly broad: Plagiarism, elitism,
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relations with businessmen, with the Church, and with sponsors, the social responsibility of scientists, and the impact of their work on the general population; all of this concentrated in a few short scenes, sometimes in a couple of loaded phrases. Brecht, as in the rest of his plays, does not give us any answers, but he asks questions better than most.

The overarching theme, of course, is the fight to disseminate the truth when it hurts the interests of the powerful. Considering how religious dogmatism and political interests escalate their efforts to muddle scientific truth in our times, it’s still a very relevant read.
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LibraryThing member elenchus
SAGREDO: Gott! Wo ist Gott?
GALILEO
zornig: Dort nicht! So wenig wie er hier auf der Erde zu finden ist,
wenn dort Wesen sind und ihn hier suchen sollten!
SAGREDO: Und wo ist also Gott?
GALILEO: Bin ich Theologe? Ich bin Mathematiker.
SAGREDO: Vor allem bist du ein Mensch. Und ich frage dich, wo ist
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Gott in deinem Weltsystem?
GALILEO: In uns oder nirgends!
SAGREDO
schreiend: Wie der Verbrannte gesagt hat? [33]

Not many readers I'm acquainted with read plays at all, let alone regularly. I consider this typical, though of course there remains a significant minority who don't fit this profile. Among those typical, though, I assume a common response if confronted with Brecht's Leben des Galilei would be to wonder, what's the point? The accompanying frame of mind: It was silly for anyone to think the Sun went round the Earth, and it's a waste of time to read about people who thought that way.

I suspect Brecht wrote the play precisely to dispel that outlook. He draws parallels between the accepted hierarchy of Church over Science in Venice circa 1600, and that of owners over wage earners in the late 1930s. (It would apply today equally well.) We're just as resistant to reconsidering our accepted truths today as ever we were.

DER INQUISITOR: Es ist die Unruhe ihres eigenen Gehirns, die diese auf die unbewegliche Erde
übertragen! Sie schreien: die Zahlen zwingen uns! Aber woher kommen ihren Zahlen? Jederman
weiß, daß sie vom Zweifel kommen. Diese Menschen zweifeln an allem. Sollen wir die
menschliche Gesellschaft auf den Zweifel begründen und nicht mehr auf den Glauben?
[105]
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LibraryThing member jonfaith
Young man, I do not eat my cheese absentmindedly.

Despite my perforated memory, I can still cling to triumph, most of which are the achievements of others but alas I can still appreciate. I thought about Brecht at the end of his life this morning while enjoying this masterful narrative. Did he
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regard himself as recanted? Did his petty tyranny of the women in his life strike him as abominable? Galileo as depicted by Brecht is too pragmatic to be disarmed by such pondering. He is at ease groveling for appointments as he understands the alternative. Aside from the necessity of obsequiousness he recognizes the need of discretion and the effects of The Age of Reason not only on the established order but on human existential orientation. He anticipates Weber’s disenchantment but finds solace in wine, bread and conversation.

What of my own missteps and absences? As a reader I blunder about with wistful grasps at concepts and reverie. Muddled by self deprecation, labor and lager—somehow I persevere. I needed this play today.
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LibraryThing member scottjpearson
This book, as the introduction delineates, was originally written in Fascist Germany whose attitude towards science and knowledge in general paralleled the ignorance of the Papacy in Galileo's era. Then in a post-atomic-bomb world with two superpowers on the brink, Brecht adapted this play into a
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new set of concerns about the "fruit" of knowledge. As such, in our era of Trumpian ignorance and North Korean nuclear ambition (two parties who just today sat down in Singapore), this work remains relevant to contemporary life. The sophistication required in this thematic rework over fifteen years transformed this book into a more readable and more timeless piece.

Yes, this book is not non-fiction technically as it is historical fiction. No one knows the details of what Galileo thought and spoke a long time ago. These remain inaccessible and buried. Nonetheless, historical fiction will be chronicled in this blog as it provides insight and access into situations of history that might remain obscured were it not for the efforts of novelists and playwrights.

The plot in this work was straightforward enough. It described Galileo interacting with family, the ruling class, and the clergy in the ancient Italian city-states. Eventually, papal forces move him to recant his discovery that the earth revolves around the sun in exchange for the ability to live a normal life. (Jupiter's multiple moons play a curiously prominent role in this narrative, a role I do not think I fully grasp.) His recantation obviously caused him to lose popularity among those in favor of enlightenment, but in Brecht's telling at least, he remained popular among the people for thinking like them instead of the scholastics. Of course, Galileo won the war as few today would side with a earth-centered view of the universe.

As suggested above, this book housed two dominant themes: The triumph of science over ignorance and the care needed to make science serve the social good. In the latter theme, Brecht tended in a quasi-Marxist direction (which could also be considered merely populist or even democratic) that the "people" were/are the final judge of the good.

I find it most curious to wonder why and how people of the clerical set would object to the point of threatening death to Galileo over the issue of what lay at the center of the universe. To them, it threatened the medieval order established in Thomas Aquinas that God dwelt in the heavens and that the Pope (and the clergy through him) were centrally governing the world. The people could not and should not think for themselves. It is Galileo's, Brecht's, and my contention that people need to care for this world (in the face of Fascism, atomic bombs, or Trumpianism) with responsibility and reason. Sometimes, defeats might come along this path, but the battle must be won by each generation if we are to persevere as the human race.
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Language

Original language

German

Original publication date

1940 (Leben des Galilei)
1943
1960 (English: Vesey)
1980 (English: Willett)

ISBN

0802130593 / 9780802130594
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