The Sky in Early Modern English Literature

Abstract

When Shakespeare was about 8 years old, his father probably took him outside his Stratford home into their northward-facing back yard. There, father and son gazed upon the first great new star visible in the past 500 years, shining forth as brightly as Venus, and even visible in daylight. This new star, which we now know as a supernova, completely unhinged old ideas about the cosmos. Combined with a parade of bright comets, a second bright new star in 1604, and a series of eclipses, people began to look at the sky more seriously. In this book, Levy explores how the sky of that period was reflected in its literature.