An enduring puzzle of the Renaissance is why William Shakespeare ignores the astronomical revolutions of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. He deals superficially with celestial phenomena and appears oblivious to the effects that new perceptions in cosmology were having on worldview. This book discusses the rise of evidence-based inquiry into natural phenomena, and argues that Shakespeare’s famous play, Hamlet, is an allegory describing the chief cosmological models that vied for acceptance at the turn of the seventeenth century.