Leben des Galilei

Leben des Galilei, a play (Schauspiel) in 15 episodes by B. Brecht with music by Hanns Eisler, which was written in exile in Denmark in 1938-9 after Otto Hahn and his team of scientists had (‘according to newspaper reports’, as stated in Versuche vol. 14, 1955) succeeded in splitting the atom. The play was performed in Zurich in 1943 by German actors in exile. Brecht was at this time in the USA, where he wrote, in collaboration with Charles Laughton, a second version in English which was performed in Beverly Hills (California) in 1947 with Laughton in the title role, and in the following year in New York. The third and final version is based on the English text and the rehearsals of the play by the Berliner Ensemble for performance at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm. The main changes in these two versions are the omission of the final scene and the use of the Vorspruch of sc. 15 as an epilogue. While preserving the best facets of Brecht's epic technique, the play is written after the manner of Shakespearian historical drama. It opens when Galilei is 46 and closes in 1637, when his former pupil Andrea smuggles the Discorsi out of Italy. Galilei, by now almost blind, remains until his death (which took place in 1642) under house arrest, but has the satisfaction that he has deceived the Inquisition over his book, since Andrea carries a copy, made secretly while the original was being confiscated page by page as the book was written.

In the first episode Galilei tries to prove to the boy Andrea the Copernican theory which replaced the Ptolemaic system, the only one acceptable to the Church as being compatible with the Scriptures. Because of his poverty he uses information about a new Dutch telescope, obtained from the wealthy Ludovico who hopes to marry Virginia, Galilei's daughter, to make an instrument, and offers it as his own invention to the Republic of Venice for the money he sorely needs. His ruse succeeds. After his return to Padua (episode 3) Galilei finds with the aid of the telescope proof of the validity of the Copernican system (10 January 1610). He fails to convince the Grand Duke of Florence of his discoveries, but is successful in Rome, where the astronomer Clavius of the Collegium Romanum of the Vatican confirms his findings.

In the central episode (7) the Inquisition places the Copernican system on the Index (5 March 1616), and Cardinal Bellarmin impresses upon Galilei the need for silence. Eight years later the mathematician Cardinal Barberini succeeds as Pope Urban VIII. Galilei resumes his research, and his theories become the theme of a popular carnival in Florence and elsewhere celebrating Galilei as image-breaker. The following year (1633) Galilei is brought to Rome to face the Inquisition, an episode which culminates in his recantation of his theories (sc. 13). The motivation of the recantation is a prominent feature of the play, and the apparently simple arguments become increasingly complex, although the ideological approach with its rational dialectics never shifts its ground. There remains a strong trace of pessimism, which is explained by the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima. Galilei's retort to Andrea's accusation of cowardice, that only an unhappy country is in need of heroes (‘Unglücklich das Land, das Helden nötig hat’), has an air of resignation which enhances his stature as he emerges from the trial, no hero, but one who bears the signs of brutal torture in his barely recognizable physical appearance.

The integration of dialectics into the portrayal of character gives this play its special balance. Galilei is a hedonist, but Brecht so presents all ethical concepts that they appear, through the deliberately calculated situations which prompt the argument, to yield only relative judgements. Whether Galilei is a fool or a ‘hero’ when he risks his life during the plague (episode 5) is the most striking query in connection with his conduct at the trial, and yet the obsession of the scientist in his search for truth for its own sake is more compelling than Brecht's dialectical preoccupations. The play stresses the virtue of reason only to expose its subordination to opportunism on two levels, that of the populace, representing society, and the Church, representing secular authority. Both the strength and the limitations of the play, its characterization of human nature and its ideological commitment, derive from this.