(Illustration 4: The arrangement of celestial bodies in the Copernican, heliocentric model of the cosmos [credit: Philip Lansberge, Cyclometriae Novae Libri Duo (Middelberg, 1616), Leiden University Special Collections, Shelfmark Thijs 1300, author photograph])
When the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe developed a compromise position, in which the other planets orbited the Sun, which in turn orbited the Earth (see illustration 5), some embrace this proposal. If Mercury passed between us and the Sun, that movement would not necessarily disprove Brahe’s widely accepted system. After Brahe’s death, his pupil, the German mathematician Johannes Kepler, whose numerous contributions to astronomy include the recognition that planets move in elliptical (rather than simply circular orbits) pursued one of his mentor’s most laborious projects. He completed a carefully compiled catalogue of stars, the Rudolphine Tables, allowing him to predict that the orbit of Mercury would soon take the planet between the Earth and the Sun.
(Illustration 5: Illustration of Brahe’s system, in which the planets orbit the Sun, which in turn orbits the Earth [credit: Philip Lansberge, Commentationes in Motum Terrae Diurnum & Annuum (Middelberg, 1630), Leiden University Special Collections, Shelfmark Thijs 1300, author photograph])
The rarity of Mercury’s transit frustrated Kepler’s desire to confirm his predictions. He calculated that the two planets he firmly believed were orbiting between us and the Sun (Mercury and Venus) would make transits near the end of 1631. He made these predictions in 1630, shortly before his death, but did not live to see them confirmed. In November 1631, the French mathematician Pierre Gassendi prepared a telescope that would project on the floor the image of the Sun as Mercury passed in front of it. Despite adverse weather conditions, the clouds cleared on 7 November, the day Kepler had predicted the transit would occur. Although the planet’s small shadow, not as large as a lunar eclipse as he had imagined, surprised Gassendi, he realized he had witnessed Mercury’s movement between the Earth and the Sun (see illustration 6; Mercury’s orbit does not occur on the same plane as the Earth’s orbit around the sun.
A few weeks later, Gassendi hoped to witness the movement of Venus between the Sun and the Earth, but he had not realized that transit would not be visible from Europe (it could have been observed in El Paso if someone here had known to look for it). Gassendi published his findings first in letters to his friend Wilhelm Schickart and then in early in 1632 as Mercurius in Sole Visus (“Mercury Visible on the Sun”). These confirmed that Kepler, the Copernican, had calculated the transit with astounding accuracy. A handful of observers made their own, unpublished notes that corresponded with Gassendi’s public statements. Later, after Gassendi’s death, Mercurius in Sole Visus was reprinted as part of a collection of the scientist’s works and correspondence.
In Transit: Science, Poetry, and the Wonders of the Cosmos
The first recorded observation of the transit of Mercury on 7 November 1631 gave additional weight to the heliocentric system of astronomy that Nicholas Copernicus had postulated: the earth orbited the sun, rather than the other way around. At dawn on Monday, 11 November 2019, Borderland residents can wake up to observe this rare phenomenon for themselves, if they take the necessary precautions (please remember: never look directly at the Sun!).
The Transit of Mercury in History and Today
A transit of Mercury occurs when the small planet passes between the Earth and the Sun (see illustration 1 and 2). The timing of Mercury’s passage between the Earth and the Sun is such that a transit happens only about a dozen times in a century. The most recent transit of Mercury occurred in 2016. After the transit that occurs in 2019, we will not have a chance to observe another one until 2032. The movement of a planet in front of a star like the Sun very modestly affects the amount of light observed from the star; scientists have used the change in observable light to postulate the presence of planets (“exoplanets”) orbiting distant stars. On 4 November 2019 (a week in advance of the transit), Dr. Renee Weber, manager of the Heliophysics and Planetary Science Division at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville Alabama, will make a virtual visit by Skype to UTEP to discuss the transit and to explain the best ways of observing it. Some preliminary information about the timing and visibility of the transit as seen from El Paso can be found here.
(Illustration 1: Mercury passing in front of the Sun, November 8, 2006 [credit: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/news/2016/5/6/transit-of-mercury/] )
(Illustration 2: Time lapse photograph of Mercury’s transit of the Sun, November 8, 2006 [credit: NASA, https://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solarsystem/20oct_transitofmercury.html])
The transit of Mercury, in which the planet’s orbit brings it between the Sun and our terrestrial perspective, disproves the Ptolemaic (or geocentric) understanding of the cosmos that held force before Copernicus postulated that heavenly bodies orbited the Sun instead of the Earth. In the system in which the Earth stood at the center of the universe, the known planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) did not pass between us and the nearer celestial bodies of the Sun and the Moon. To account for the movement of these bodies, star-gazers developed a complicated system in which some planets, such as Mercury, seemed to move in one direction and then change course, in movements called epicycles (see illustration 3). The heliocentric model Copernicus proposed in De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (1543) (see illustration 4) simplified the planets’ movements. Many could not accept the new system. After all, standing on Earth, the sun does seem to move across the sky.
(Illustration 3: Movement of a planet in Ptolemaic, geocentric model of the cosmos [credit: Philip Lansberge, Commentationes in Motum Terrae Diurnum & Annuum
(Middelberg, 1630), Leiden University Special Collections, Shelfmark Thijs 1300, author photograph])
(Illustration 6: The path of Mercury [and the ecliptic, the apparent path of the Sun relative to us] in the transit Gassendi observed [credit: Institutio Astronomica Iuxta Hypotheses tam Veterum quam Copernici & Tychonis (Hague, 1656), at Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, Burndy Collection, Shelfmark 701784; author photo]).
Paratextual Verse in Early Modern Science
It might seem strange for a scholar of poetry in the age of Shakespeare to take an interest in the period’s scientific observations. However, the disciplines of knowledge in early modern Europe did not have the firm boundaries we imagine for these fields today. Early modern thinkers might express their observations in poetry, for instance. Gassendi, a Catholic priest with broad scientific and historical interests, was fascinated by the Latin poetry of Lucretius, an inspiration for the development of atomic theory. And when Gassendi died, an edition of one of his works, Institutio Astronomica, had been in the process of being printed in The Hague. Several of his contemporaries composed poetic tributes to the great man and allowed these to be printed in the book (see Illustration 7). These “paratextual” poems, not essential to the main texts included in Institutio Astronomica, might seem to be ephemeral and unimportant to understanding Gassendi, early modern astronomy, or early modern cultural history. However, these often-overlooked verses are at the heart of a project undertaken by me and a Student Research Fellow through The Humanities Collaborative at EPCC-UTEP. There are many reasons to pay attention to these seemingly ephemeral poems, not least because they remind us that the humanities and the sciences have historically shared common interests, including the discovery and dissemination of deep truths.
(Illustration 7: One of several poems in praise of the deceased Gassendi included in Institutio Astronomica [Hague, 1656] [credit: Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, Burndy Collection, Shelfmark 701784; author photo])
We can think of paratextual materials as part of the container for the central text. Many kinds of information can be found in the paratexts of an early modern book. Modern readers might not consider the name of the printer of an early modern book, usually mentioned among the preliminary pieces of information on a title page, to be worth noting, for instance. But if a printer were responsible for (and profiting from) making texts on both sides of a controversy available in print, that piece of information might be significant. Early modern books often contain preliminary texts, such as an author’s obsequious dedication of a book to a powerful individual, a person who might potentially serve as a lucrative patron for the author. Paying attention to the patron might affect how we approach a book that follows.
Similarly, quite a variety of kinds of poetry appears among the paratexts of early modern books. Sometimes an author writes a poetic summary or preview of the lengthy prose work at the heart of the book. Sometimes acquaintances of the author send verses in praise of the author or the book (akin to the modern “blurb”) to the printer, and these are included among the paratexts. Such texts might help us construct a network of individuals connected to an author or participating in the subject of the book. The poetic contributions to the posthumous printing of Gassendi’s Institutio Astronomica might be considered in this light. Perhaps the most famous verse paratext in early modern England is Ben Jonson’s posthumous tribute to William Shakespeare in 1623 in which he wrote that this “Starre of Poets” was “not of an age, but for all time.” Other poets wrote less-famous poems in that famous collection of Shakespeare’s works and when a new edition was printed in 1632, John Milton (whose careful reading of the First Folio, including supplying the missing paratext of the prologue to Romeo and Juliet in his copy of the book now at the Free Library of Philadelphia has recentlybeen in the news ) looked back on Shakespeare’s immortal collection of plays and thought that many “kings for such a tomb would wish to die.” Paratextual verse appears in every sort of book printed in early modern Europe: theological disputes, travel narratives, legal treatises, translations, philosophical texts, literary works, and even works of science. Because they are not the main text of any given book, they tend to be ignored. But they are a worthwhile focus of study. Among other things, they show that the divide between the sciences and the humanities has not always been as stark as we imagine it today.
Although some scholarship argues for the importance of studying paratexts, actually locating paratextual poems and making them available for readers presents a number of obstacles. Most bibliographical tools and library catalogues describe the main text, listing authors (or suggesting a name when a text was anonymous), titles, publishers and locations, the presence of illustrations, and even the number of pages. But most of these useful reference works do not take any special notice of a book’s paratexts. This year, UTEP Undergraduate Research Fellow J. J. Martinez and I are collaborating to build a new reference tool for those interested in paratexts. Our open-access, digital humanities project will advance an earlier iteration of the “PAVEMENT (Paratextual Verse in Early Modern English Texts) Database” that I had worked on in an effort to catalogue hundreds of early modern books and identify their paratextual poetry. Together, J.J. and I intend to examine hundreds of books printed in early modern England that touch on the history of science and scientific discovery and create entries for these books with special attention to those that include any sort of paratextual verse. Given the upcoming, rare transit of Mercury, we are focusing our efforts during fall 2019 on books having to do with early modern astronomy. We hope to present our preliminary findings at the event discussing the transit of Mercury in November 2019.
For further information or press inquiries, please contact me, Dr. Andrew Fleck, at the Department of English, The University of Texas at El Paso (ajfleck@utep.edu).
Written by Dr. Andrew Fleck, The University of Texas at El Paso
Faculty Fellow, The Humanities Collaborative at EPCC-UTEP
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