Who doth not see the measures of the Moon/ Which thirteen times she danceth every year?/ And ends her pavan thirteen times as soon (Abstract)

Volume 47 number 2 (2019)

David H. Levy

P.O. Box 895, Vail, AZ 85641; jarnacqc@outlook.com

R. A. Rosenfeld

RASC

Abstract

(Abstract only) The later Elizabethan and early Jacobean periods (1570s–1620s) were marked by an unusual richness of dramatic naked-eye astronomical events—supernovae, great comets, and eclipses. It was also the period of Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler, and Galileo, and is seen as one of the most dynamic periods for the development of astronomical theory and instrumentation. It was also a stellar era for English as a literary language. Astronomy and literature were not worlds apart at the time. Curious about the Elizabethan’s curiosity about the night sky? David Levy reads some of the most memorable expressions of early-modern astronomically inspired poetry and prose, accompanied by R. A. Rosenfeld on a reproduction of a 16th-century flute.