Galileo

Galileo
by Bertolt Brecht

Galileo
List Price: $7.95
Our Price: $7.62
You Save: $0.33 (4%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.11 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions


or

Book Summary Information

Author: Bertolt Brecht
Editor: Eric Bentley
Introduction: Eric Bentley
Translator: Charles Laughton
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1994-01-11
ISBN: 0802130593
Number of pages: 160
Publisher: Grove Press

Book Reviews of Galileo

Book Review: Good play, bad packaging
Summary: 3 Stars

Bertolt Brecht, Galileo (Grove Press, 1952)

Publishers who put out "literature" (perhaps I should capitalize the L) have felt it necessary for the past half-century or so to include long-winded dissections of the texts as a part of their editions. No mind is paid, seemingly, to whether these long-winded dissections contain major plot spoilers (they almost always do). Add Eric Bentley's interminable preface to the Grove Press edition of Brecht's Galileo to the list. Perhaps Grove assumes anyone reading the thing will either have already read the play or will be so turned off by Belntley's wooden prose style that they won't read far enough to get to the spoilers. My advice: go the second route. And book publishers, if you're putting essays in your editions, PLEASE put them AFTER the actual text, so the novice reader of a given work will be able to approach it without the coloring of another reader's analysis.

Bentley spends forty-odd pages discussing the historical inaccuracies of Brecht's Galileo and the two extant versions of the text (though Bentley says both are presented in the Grive edition, this is not the case; from his comments, I gather this is the second version of the play, completed after WW2 [the first was completed in 1937]). Bentley goes on forever about the socialist qualities of Galileo, and whether the scientist makes a worthy Marxist hero, both in the reader's eyes and in Brecht's. Whether anyone outside those writing a paper for a Marxist lit class would care doesn't seem to have crossed his mind. Brecht is one of the few authors who is capable of taking a political statement and couching it in such writing as to make the statement itself visible only to those looking for it; Galileo's Marxism, or lack of same, doesn't hit the reader in the face with a dead herring (or a dropped pebble, as 'twere) throughout the text. Commendable, especially for as fervent a Marxist as was Brecht. Here is a man who never let the message overtake the medium, and scads of modern authors could do with repeated readings of this text to get a handle on what it is they're doing wrong.

Bentley aside, the play itself is certainly worth the reader's time. Galileo is presented from the time of his first findings with which Mother Church took offense until twenty years after his recantation. While the play mainly focuses on Galileo and how his own views toward his work affect him and those around him, we're not allowed to go away without understanding how those views also affected the Italian society around him; as with all things, the subversion to be found in Galileo's discovery that the Earth revolves around the Sun instead of vice-versa seeps into the public mind, much to the Church's dismay. But at its heart, the play is about the man himself and those around him. Galileo himself, historically accurate or not, is a convincing character, and his family, friends, and supporters are also very well-drawn (with the arguable exception of his daughter, who never seems to really flesh out and become a believable human being; her actions and reactions are predictable and wooden). Whatever the message underlying, and whether the reader agrees with it or not, Galileo is first and foremost a decent piece of drama. Leave Bentley's preface until after you've drawn your own conclusions. ** 1/2 (**** for the play, zero for Bentley's comments)

Summary of Galileo

Considered by many to be one of Brecht's masterpieces, Galileo explores the question of a scientist's social and ethical responsibility, as the brilliant Galileo must choose between his life and his life's work when confronted with the demands of the Inquisition. Through the dramatic characterization of the famous physicist, Brecht examines the issues of scientific morality and the difficult relationship between the intellectual and authority. This version of the play is the famous one that was brought to completion by Brecht himself, working with Charles Laughton, who played Galileo in the first two American productions (Hollywood and New York, 1947). Since then the play has become a classic in the world repertoire. "The play which most strongly stamped on my mind a sense of Brecht's great stature as an artist of the modern theatre was Galileo." - Harold Clurman; "Thoughtful and profoundly sensitive." - Newsweek.

Theater Books

Book Subjects
Most talked about in Theater Books
Looking Out: Perspectives on Dance and Criticism in a Multicultural World ImageLooking Out: Perspectives on Dance and Criticism in a Multicultural World
Macmillan Pub Co; Published: 1995-10; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $110.69
Directors on Directing: A Source Book of the Modern Theatre ImageDirectors on Directing: A Source Book of the Modern Theatre
by Toby Cole, Helen Krich Chinoy
Allyn & Bacon; Published: 1963-01-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $92.40
Price in other shops: $142.80
Voice and the Actor ImageVoice and the Actor
by Cicely Berry
Wiley; Published: 1991-07-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.00
Price in other shops: $12.95
A Trip to the Light Fantastic: Travels With a Mexican Circus ImageA Trip to the Light Fantastic: Travels With a Mexican Circus
by Katie Hickman
Harpercollins; Published: 1995-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.00
Who On Earth Is Tom Baker? An Autobiography ImageWho On Earth Is Tom Baker? An Autobiography
by Tom Baker
Harper Collins, 1997; Published: 1997; Hardcover; Book
Who on Earth Is Tom Baker? ImageWho on Earth Is Tom Baker?
by Tom Baker
Harpercollins Audio; Published: 1997-10; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $133.82
Streisand: A Biography ImageStreisand: A Biography
by Anne Edwards
Little Brown & Co (T); Published: 1997-04; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $3.60
Price in other shops: $24.95
The Orton Diaries ImageThe Orton Diaries
by Joe Orton
Da Capo Press; Published: 1996-08-22; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.48
Price in other shops: $18.00
Understanding Movies (12th Edition) ImageUnderstanding Movies (12th Edition)
by Louis Giannetti
Allyn & Bacon; Published: 2010-01-31; Paperback; Book
Best price: $75.00
Price in other shops: $105.40
The Theater Experience Tenth Edition ImageThe Theater Experience Tenth Edition
by Edwin Wilson
McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages; Published: 2005-12-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $50.00
Similar Books and other products
Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology ImageTechnopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology
by Neil Postman
Vintage; Published: 1993-03-31; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.00
Price in other shops: $15.00
The Galileo Affair: A Documentary History (California Studies in the History of Science) ImageThe Galileo Affair: A Documentary History (California Studies in the History of Science)
University of California Press; Published: 1989-05-19; Paperback; Book
Best price: $22.01
Price in other shops: $28.95
Arcadia: A Play ImageArcadia: A Play
by Tom Stoppard
Faber & Faber; Published: 1994-09-24; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.80
Price in other shops: $15.00
An Enemy of the People (Penguin Plays) ImageAn Enemy of the People (Penguin Plays)
by Henrik Ibsen
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1977-11-17; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.54
Price in other shops: $12.00
New Atlantis and the Great Instauration (Crofts Classics) ImageNew Atlantis and the Great Instauration (Crofts Classics)
by Francis Bacon
Harlan Davidson; Published: 1989-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.60
Price in other shops: $7.95
The Plague ImageThe Plague
by Albert Camus
Vintage; Published: 1991-05-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.45
Price in other shops: $14.95
The Tempest (Signet Classics) ImageThe Tempest (Signet Classics)
by William Shakespeare
Signet Classics; Published: 1998-09-01; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.16
Price in other shops: $4.95
The Trial of Galileo: Aristotelism, the "New Cosmology," and the Catholic Church, 1616-33 (Reacting to the Past Series) ImageThe Trial of Galileo: Aristotelism, the "New Cosmology," and the Catholic Church, 1616-33 (Reacting to the Past Series)
by Frederick Purnell, Mark C. Carnes, Michael S. Pettersen, Barnard University
Longman; Published: 2007-11-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $25.47
Price in other shops: $27.60
Copenhagen ImageCopenhagen
by Michael Frayn
Anchor; Published: 2000-08-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.79
Price in other shops: $14.00
Waiting for Godot: A Tragicomedy in Two Acts ImageWaiting for Godot: A Tragicomedy in Two Acts
by Samuel Beckett
Grove Press; Published: 1994-01-18; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.97
Price in other shops: $13.00