The Telescope in Early Modern English Literature

Abstract

In 1610, the year of Galileo’s discovery of Jupiter’s moons using his telescope, Shakespeare completed Cymbeline, a play in which Jupiter is seen descending from heaven accompanied by four ghostly images. This was a time when fundamental beliefs in the nature of the cosmos were changing. This chapter discusses the perspective lenses that were developed in England in the quarter century before the telescope. Shakespeare understood these lenses, and alluded to them in Richard III.