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A English Part II Study Material Modern Drama

society. In combination with his strong Marxist ideals, Brecht produced a performance that
had extensive social and political significance. The ideologies of the people, the ideologies of
the government and the ideologies of some of the world’s greatest thinkers come together in
Brecht’s The Life of Galileo to provide an astonishing insight into our social reality.

“…It is a play what contains very little element of

caricature. This does not turn his Galileo into the self-
portrait it is sometimes alleged to be…” What is your
opinion? (P.U. 2004)

The conflict between Galileo and the Church took place within a densely charged political
atmosphere. The new science threatened both the Church’s traditional role as aribter of
doctrinal truth and its position as a great European power. What were the political issues at
stake in the debate over Copernicanism? We can approach this question from two directions,
asking (a) what political interests did the Church have vested in the traditional worldview;
and (b) what interests did the Galileans stake in Copernican worldview. Given the profoundly
human dimension of this conflict, we should also ask: what were Galileo’s choices?

The first question, the Church’s political investment in the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic cosmology,
is about Counter-Reformation politics. In the century-and-a-half prior to Galileo’s
trial, Italy and the Church suffered a succession of severe setbacks. The French invasion
left Italy in a state of political wreckage and set the stage for a poisonous rivalry between the
Holy Roman Emperor, the Papacy, and the King of France. At the same time, the Church
faced dissension within its own ranks. When the sixteenth century opened, scarcely anyone
in Europe doubted the need for reform of the Church. Most called for a reform from within,
but Luther, that Papal Bull-burning German, crossed the Rubicon. Breaking completely with
the church, he split Christendom into two belligerent blocs, and added a vicious ideological
element to the Cold War of the sixteenth century.

The Council of Trent, called ostensibly to answer the Protestant challenge, created a new,
toughened Church. To combat the Protestant Heresy, the Council redefined the Church’s
doctrine and established iron-fisted mechanisms to enforce the creed, including the Index of
Printed Books and the Inquisition at Rome. One of the most important debates at the Council
of Trent was over the Question of Scripture vs. Tradition. Does religious truth rest upon the
word of God alone, or does it rest upon the dual foundations of scripture together with the
apostolic and ecclesiastical traditions? Since the Church was the source and guardian of
tradition, its religious and political authority weighed in the balance. Years of debate and
thousands of scudi went into answering this question, but the conclusion was determined by
political necessity: Scripture and Tradition together, not Scripture alone, were the win
bulwarks of the faith.

Galileo’s trial hinged upon the Church’s rigid adherence to this doctrine. Galileo did not just
defend a new astronomical system; he proclaimed science to be a new criterion of authority,
and hence undermined the bedrock of Roman Catholic authority.

The philosophy of Aristotle was fundamental to the new scholasticism that emerged
after Trent. Arguments based upon Aristotle’s physics explained and justified some of the

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