Blog Post #6 Life of Galileo

On page 118 Brecht’s notes About the Part of Galileo, he wrote,

“What gives this new historical character his quality of strangeness, novelty, strikingness, is the fact that he, Galileo, looks at the world of 1600 around him as if he himself were a stranger. He studies this world and finds it remarkable, outdated, in need of explanation.”

Brecht then made a list of people Galileo met in each scene as his subject of study.

Galileo’s idea about the world was indeed quite different and maybe too advanced for other people, and it made him a “stranger” of the world. According to the list Brecht made, Galileo had been studying people ever since the very beginning of the play. However, we also had the notion that Galileo was indifferent to his servant’s and hid daughter’s suffering, and stubbornly neglecting suggestions and warnings throughout the play. If we define learning as a process (in other words, you are not exactly the same person after you have learned something). Do you think Galileo has learned anything from his studying of people? What has he learned most likely? Did he take his observations, internalize them, and produce any kinds of outcomes?