The Many Lives Of Galileo

This Student Edition of Brecht's classic dramatisation of the conflict between free enquiry and official ideology features an extensive introduction and commentary that includes a plot summary, discussion of the context, themes, characters, style and language as well as questions for further study and notes on words and phrases in the text. It is the perfect edition for students of theatre and literature Along with Mother Courage, the character of Galileo is one of Brecht's greatest creations, immensely live, human and complex. Unable to resist his appetite for scientific investigation, Galileo's heretical discoveries about the solar system bring him to the attention of the Inquisition. He is scared into publicly abjuring his theories but, despite his self-contempt, goes on working in private, eventually helping to smuggle his writings out of the country. As an examination of the problems that face not only the scientist but also the whole spirit of free inquiry when brought into conflict with the requirements of government or official ideology, Life of Galileo has few equals. Written in exile in 1937-9 and first performed in Zurich in 1943, Galileo was first staged in English in 1947 by Joseph Losey in a version jointly prepared by Brecht and Charles Laughton, who played the title role. Printed here is the complete translation by John Willett.

The Many Lives of Galileo is a Marxist study of the development of Bertolt Brecht's great play Galileo on the English stage. Tracing various translations of Brecht's original, and the historical and political moments surrounding these translations, Dougal McNeill examines how, across the distances of culture, history and language, The Life of Galileo has come to figure so prominently in the life of English-language theatre. The translations and productions of Galileo by Charles Laughton, Howard Brenton and David Hare are examined, in a method combining close reading with an attention to broader social contexts, with an eye to uncovering their implications for drama in performance. Brecht valued re-creation, re-invention and re-telling as much as creation itself. In this book the author applies Brecht's aesthetic to translations of his own work, following Laughton, Brenton and Hare as they set themselves the task of rewriting Brecht and, in the process, use him to comment on their own eras.

The first collection and translation into English of the earliest biographical accounts of Galileo’s life This unique critical edition presents key early biographical accounts of the life and work of Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), written by his close contemporaries. Collected and translated into English for the first time and supplemented by an introduction and incisive annotations by Stefano Gattei, these documents paint an incomparable firsthand picture of Galileo and offer rare insights into the construction of his public image and the complex intertwining of science, religion, and politics in seventeenth-century Italy. Here in its entirety is Vincenzo Viviani’s Historical Account, an extensive and influential biography of Galileo written in 1654 by his last and most devoted pupil. Viviani’s text is accompanied by his “Letter to Prince Leopoldo de’ Medici on the Application of Pendulum to Clocks” (1659), his 1674 description of Galileo’s later works, and the long inscriptions on the façade of Viviani’s Florentine palace (1702). The collection also includes the “Adulatio perniciosa,” a Latin poem written in 1620 by Cardinal Maffeo Barberini—who, as Pope Urban VIII, would become Galileo’s prosecutor—as well as descriptive accounts that emerged from the Roman court and contemporary European biographers. Featuring the original texts in Italian, Latin, and French with their English translations on facing pages, this invaluable book shows how Galileo’s pupils, friends, and critics shaped the Galileo myth for centuries to come, and brings together in one volume the primary sources needed to understand the legendary scientist in his time.

Because of Galileo's courageous campaign to change the methods of doing science, physicist Albert Einstein called him "the father of modern physics--indeed, of modern science altogether." A devout Catholic who wanted the church to maintain its authority and wisdom, Galileo worked tirelessly to persuade the church authorities to stop insisting that the sun revolved around a stationary earth, when there was evidence to prove otherwise. Galileo's persistence led to the Inquisition trying and sentencing him for heresy in 1633.

Galileo Galilei, His Life and His Works is a biographic of Galileo Galilei. The text accounts some of the most important moments of Galileo’s life, along with his contribution in physics. The first part of the text covers the major aspects of Galileo’s. Part I details Galileo’s life as a student, professor, courtier, and author. Part II covers the major works of Galileo, such as magnetism, weight of air, alloy analysis, materials strength, falling bodies, and natural oscillations. The book will be of great interest to readers who have a keen interest in the history of physics.

A suspenseful narrative and spiritive rendition of the life of Galileo.