a most galilean affair

Let’s talk about Galileo [February 15^th, 1564 – January 8^th, 1642]. Not only was he a champion of the Copernican heliocentric view of the cosmos; he also discovered four of Jupiter’s moons with his telescope – giving less and less credence to a critics of the heliocentric model because it showed that small objects could orbit a moving object. He also demonstrated the phases of Venus – a phenomenon that could only be possible if it orbited the Sun instead of Earth. For that he is considered by many, among many other things, the father of modern science, the father of physics, and the father of observational astronomy.

Galileo’s lifetime was a formative period in Europe. One important thing that strikes me is the publication of the first novel in the form as we understand it in 1605, Don Quixote of La Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes, arguably one of the most influential literary works and the formative work for modern Western literature. Another major event that happens is the establishment of Jamestown, Virginia in 1607, which is the first permanent English settlement in America, marking the beginnings of the British Empire.

Let’s put this further in context. William Shakespeare [birth date unknown | baptized April 26^th, 1564 – April 23^rd, 1616] considered by many to be the greatest figure and dramatist in English literature, was his contemporary. His works continue to have a marked influence on the way we study and interact with literature.

It’s always very enlightening to ground our knowledge in a historical basis. I feel like – especially in a liberal arts college environment – we are inundated with knowledge about many different fields, but it can rarely ever occur to us how this knowledge came about in history. It’s especially interesting to see what kinds of historical figures were contemporaries of each other – and hence, what kind of intellectual epoch humanity was in at a particular time in history. It’s fascinating that hallmark events in astronomy and literature (here specifically) were happening within a person’s lifetime.