There are many approaches you can take to
reading and experiencing a text, whether it be a play, a novel,
film or any other formal communication that requires study in
order to understand "how it means, what it means" and "what does
it mean to me?"
One of the simplest approaches requires you to do something
before you read, as you read and after you have
read – before during and after. "Before" alludes to what you
do before you read, and might be called "pre-reading"; "During"
alludes to what you do as you read and involves "close reading";
and, "After" alludes to how you re-organize, rethink and analyze
what you have read come to some conclusion. Reading is not simply
a memory exercise, but an act of making personal meaning, with
each stage in this simple process helping to build your
interaction, knowledge and understanding of the text.
BEFORE (Who? What? When? Where? Why? and
How? - 5Ws + H)
Give your response to the following
questions all based on similar contexts that Galileo experiences
in the play. Put yourself in this situation - how would you
respond?
You come across a list of questions for
the up-coming SAC on Bertolt Brecht's "Life of Galileo"
written by your teacher. You read them, but you know that
you should not. Nobody else is around. The SAC is in two
days. What do you do and why?
You are a teacher in a religious school
who is an agnostic and become involved in a difficult issue
between yourself and another teacher, over whether you
should teach the theory of evolution from a scientific
standpoint or from a creationist standpoint. You are asked
to justify your scientific position on evolution before the
Principal or lose your job. What would you do?
As with all events and people, popular
culture can distort and trivialize the historical, so view any
video or popularizations with an open mind and decide for
yourself the relative
truth and authority of the illustration!
Brecht's "Galileo" is after all a distortion; a distortion with
educationalintent and one that you
will further distort to process your own understanding of
Brecht's intent.
Galileo's head was on the block
The crime was looking up for truth
And as the bombshells of my daily fears explode
I try to trace them to my youth
And then you had to bring up reincarnation
Over a couple of beers the other night
And now I'm serving time for mistakes
Made by another in another lifetime
How long till my soul gets it right
Can any human being ever reach that kind of light
I call on the resting soul of Galileo
King of night vision, king of insight
And then I think about my fear of motion
Which I never could explain
Some other fool across the ocean years ago
Must have crashed his little airplane
How long till my soul gets it right
Can any human being ever reach that kind of light
I call on the resting soul of Galileo
King of night vision, king of insight
I'm not making a joke, you know me
I take everything so seriously
If we wait for the time till all souls get it right
Then at least I know there'll be no nuclear annihilation
In my lifetime I'm still not right
I offer thanks to those before me
That's all I've got to say
'Cause maybe you squandered big bucks in your lifetime
Now I have to pay
But then again it feels like some sort of inspiration
To let the next life off the hook
But she'll say "look what I had to overcome from my last life
I think I'll write a book"
How long till my soul gets it right
Can any human being ever reach the highest light
Except for Galileo God rest his soul
(Except for the resting soul of Galileo)
King of night vision, king of insight
How long
(Till my soul gets it right)
[Til we reach the highest light]
How long
(Till my soul gets it right)
[Til we reach the highest light]
How long
Essential
Question - Building an anticipatory scaffolding - A Coat-hanger
for Your Mind:
What do you know about Galileo?
How important is Galileo to you?
How much do you know about
Galileo - the real historical Galileo?
How much do you know about "Brecht's
Galileo"?
Who was Galileo? Why is
he important?
Why does society consider
Galileo important today? Why was he important? What impact
did he have on our (your knowledge) of the world today?
Where did he live and under what
circumstances? In what historical period did he live?
How influential was he
in that time? In what ways was he influential? What
did he achieve in his lifetime?
What did he achieve after his
lifetime?
What type of example was he as a
scientist?
What type of example was he as a human
being? On what is his fame based?
Is Galileo important to you?
Bertolt Brecht's Perspective on History
A Worker Reads History (1936) Bertolt Brecht (1898 – 1956)
Who built the seven gates of Thebes?
The books are filled with names of kings.
Was it kings who hauled the craggy blocks of stone?
And Babylon, so many times destroyed,
Who built the city up each time? In which of Lima’s houses, 5
That city glittering with gold, lived those who built it?
In the evening when the Chinese wall was finished
Where did the masons go? Imperial Rome
Is full of arcs of triumph. Who reared them up? Over whom
Did the Caesars triumph? Byzantium lives in song, 10
Were all her dwellings palaces? And even in Atlantis of the
legend
The night the sea rushed in,
The drowning men still bellowed for their slaves.
Young Alexander conquered India.
He alone? 15
Caesar beat the Gauls.
Was there not even a cook in his army?
Philip of Spain wept as his fleet
Was sunk and destroyed. Were there no other tears?
Frederick the Great triumphed in the Seven Years War. Who 20
Triumphed with him?
Each page a victory,
At whose expense the victory ball?
Every ten years a great man,
Who paid the piper? 25
Monologue from Bertolt Brecht's Play "Life of
Galileo"
Read the following extract from the play, a
speech by Galileo.
GALILEO (in lecture style, bands
folded over his paunch) In my free time, and I've got
plenty of that, I have reviewed my case and asked myself how
the world of science, of which I no longer consider myself a
member, will judge it. Even a wool merchant, in addition to
buying cheap and selling dear, has to worry about the
obstacles that may be put in the way of the wool trade itself.
In this sense, the pursuit of science seems to call for
special courage.
Science trades in
knowledge distilled from doubt. Providing everybody with
knowledge of everything, science aims at making doubters of
everybody. But princes, landlords and priests keep the
majority of the people in a pearly haze of superstition and
outworn words to cover up their own machinations. The misery
of the many is as old as the hills and is proclaimed in church
and lecture hall to be as indestructible as the hills. Our new
art of doubting delighted the common people. They grabbed the
telescope out of our hands and focused it on their
tormentors—princes, landlords, priests. Those self-seeking
violent men greedily exploited the fruits of science for their
own ends but at the same time they felt the cold stare of
science focused upon the millennial, yet artificial miseries
which mankind could obviously get rid of by getting rid of
them. They showered us with threats and bribes, which weak
souls cannot resist. But can we turn our backs on the people
and still remain scientists? The movements of the heavenly
bodies have become more comprehensible; but the movements of
their rulers remain unpredictable to the people. The battle to
measure the sky was won by doubt; but credulity still prevents
the Roman housewife from winning her battle for milk.
Science, Sarti, is
involved in both battles. If mankind goes on stumbling in a
pearly haze of superstition and outworn words and remains too
ignorant to make full use of its own strength, it will never
be able to use the forces of nature which science has
discovered. What end are you scientists working for? To my
mind, the only purpose of science is to lighten the toil of
human existence. If scientists, browbeaten by selfish rulers,
confine themselves to the accumulation of knowledge for the
sake of knowledge, science will be crippled and your new
machines will only mean new hardships. Given time, you may
well discover everything there is to discover, but your
progress will be a progression away from humanity. The gulf
between you and humanity may one day be so wide that the
response to your exultation about some new achievement will be
a universal outcry of horror.
As a scientist, I had a
unique opportunity. In my time astronomy reached the market
place. Under these very special circumstances, one man's
steadfastness might have had tremendous repercussions. If I
had held out, scientists might have developed something like
the physicians' Hippocratic oath, the vow to use their
knowledge only for the good of mankind. As things stand now,
the best we can hope for is a generation of inventive dwarfs
who can be hired for any purpose. Furthermore, I have come to
the conclusion, Sarti, that I was never in any real danger.
For a few years I was as strong as the authorities. And yet I
handed the powerful my knowledge to use, or not to use, or to
misuse as served their purposes. (Virginia has come in with
a dish and stops now) I have betrayed my calling. A man
who does what I have done, cannot be tolerated in the ranks of
science.
What does this
suggest about "him" and "his" character?
Short Menu Top of Page
Brecht's The Life of Galileo: Key Vocabulary and
Concepts
religious
dogmatism
truth
scientific truth
reasoning
faith
belief
pramatism
survival
altruism
"seeing"
self-interest
self-sacrifice
religion
courage
cowardice
ethical responsibility
scientific morality
authority
choice
didactism
intransigence
passion
logic
secular truth
suppression
opportunism
dialectics
servility
narrow-mindedness
irony
allegory
"metalepsis"
The Life of Galileo - Pre-Test: So You Think You
Know?
Try these short self-assessment tests to see
how much you know about Galileo Galilei and Brecht's "Life of
Galileo". Start building your vocabulary as well as beginning to
develop some of your own essential questions about the text that
you are about to study, not just about "Galileo" but about what
you intuit about his life as it relates to yours.
Galileo Galilei Scavenger
Hunt - Select the .... to find the
answer.
1. Galileo Galilei was born on (1) ....
near Pisa, the son of a musician. He began to study(2) ....
at the University of Pisa but changed to philosophy and .....
2. In 1589, he became professor of (3) ....
at Pisa. In 1592, he moved to become mathematics professor at the
University of Padua, a position he held until 1610. During this
time he worked on a variety of experiments, including the speed at
which different objects fall, mechanics and pendulums.
3. In 1609, Galileo heard about the invention of the (4) ....
in Holland. Without having seen an example, he constructed a
superior version and made many (5) ....
discoveries. These included mountains and valleys on the surface
of the (6) ....
, sunspots, the four largest moons of the planet (7) ....
and the phases of the planet Venus.
4. His work on astronomy made him famous and he was appointed
court mathematician in (8) .....
5. In 1614, Galileo was accused of (9) ....
for his support of the Copernican theory that the sun was at the
centre of the solar system. This was revolutionary at a time when
most people believed the Earth was in this central position. In
1616, he was forbidden by the church from teaching or advocating
these theories.
5. In 1632, he was again condemned for heresy after his book
'Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems' was published.
This set out the arguments for and against the ....
theory in the form of a discussion between two men. Galileo was
summoned to appear before the (10) ....
in Rome. He was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment,
later reduced to permanent house arrest at his villa in (11) .... ,
south of Florence. He was also forced to publicly withdraw his
support for Copernican theory.
6. Although he was now going (12) ....
he continued to write. In 1638, his (13) '.....'
was published with Galileo's ideas on the laws of motion and the
principles of mechanics.
Essential
Question - Building an anticipatory scaffolding - A Coat-hanger
for Your Mind:
