Lyrics:

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Renaissance Astrology. In Act I Scene II
of King Lear, the ne’er do well Edmund steps forward and rails at the
weakness and cynicism of his fellow men:This is the excellent foppery of
the world, that,when we are sick in fortune, - often the surfeitof our own
behaviour, - we make guilty of ourdisasters the sun, the moon, and the
stars: asif we were villains by necessity.The focus of his attack is astrology
and the credulity of those who fall for its charms. But the idea that earthly
life was ordained in the heavens was essential to the Renaissance
understanding of the world. The movements of the heavens influenced
many things from the practice of medicine to major political decisions.
Every renaissance court had its astrologer including Elizabeth Ist and the
mysterious Dr. John Dee who chose the most propitious date for her
coronation. But astrologers also worked in the universities and on the
streets, reading horoscopes, predicting crop failures and rivalling priests
and doctors as pillars of the local community. But why did astrological
ideas flourish in the period, how did astrologers interpret and influence
the course of events and what new ideas eventually brought the
astrological edifice tumbling down? With Peter Forshaw, Lecturer in
Renaissance Philosophies at Birkbeck, University of London; Lauren
Kassell, Lecturer in the History and Philosophy of Science at the University
of Cambridge; and Jonathan Sawday, Professor of English Studies at the
University of Strathclyde.