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.

      Chapter 1 introduces the ancient model of the Universe that placed the Earth at its center. According to this Earth-centered or geocentric scheme, crystalline spheres held the Sun, Moon and planets, and all rotated at different rates about the Earth. An outermost sphere held the stars and it rotated about the Earth as well. In the second century AD, the Greco-Roman astronomer, Claudius Ptolemy, refined this model, which remained essentially unchanged into the sixteenth century. In 1543, Copernicus advanced a radically new way to look at the planetary system by placing the Sun at the center and relegating the Earth to the rank of a planet. Only the Moon remained in orbit around the Earth. The outer bound of the Copernican model was a sphere of stars, as was that of another model introduced in the 1580s by the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe. In 1576, Thomas Digges added a further dimension when he suggested that stars were scattered through infinite space.

      Chapter 2 reviews, briefly, how some English poets of the early modern era interpreted the Sun, Moon, planets, and the Milky Way, and it examines the extent to which Shakespeare incorporated contemporary cosmic knowledge into his works. Chapter 3 describes the state of astronomical knowledge in England in the sixteenth century and examines the meaning of the term “infinite” in connection with the distribution of stars. Thomas Digges may have used his father's invention, the perspective glass, to observe stars and other celestial objects. Chapter 4 traces the early history of the science of optics and notes that Digges’ father was a direct beneficiary of the work of Roger Bacon. Fundamental to the success of any worldview is the means by which inquirers interrogate their environment and reach conclusions. Chapter 5 looks into this subject, with special attention to fallacious thinking and faulty inference.

      Shakespeare is fond of ambiguity and finds an ideal outlet in an equivocating prince, Amleth, whose escapades the medieval scholar, Saxo Grammaticus, recorded in his history of Denmark. Chapter 6 describes similarities between Amleth and Hamlet, notably, their metaphysical insights and alleged madness. Prince Hamlet's way of acquiring information differs from the deceitful practices of the Danish king, Claudius, and his henchman, Polonius. Chapter 7 describes how Hamlet gets at the truth via a play-within-the-play. Chapter 8 elaborates on the mooted allegorical hypothesis and its personifications, and the relation between the script and the history of science and astronomy. The chapter moves on to the final phases of the plot.

      The final four chapters explore consequences of the previous eight. Chapter 9 presents other apt identifications and Chapter 10 presents the case for Shakespeare's description of celestial phenomena that no one could have known unless aided by a telescopic device. Chapter 11 gives a novel interpretation of Hamlet's well-known remark concerning wind directions and sanity. Chapter 12 interprets Hamlet's love letter as a statement of the ascendancy of the New Philosophy, and the Afterword contains concluding remarks.