Bertolt Brecht’s The Life of Galileo: A Play of Conflict between Dogmatic Religious Belief and Scientific Temperament

Abstract

The conflict between scientific temperament and theology as theology always dominated other disciplines in the earlier days has been debated from time immemorial. Many times, theology, though it was said that it had patranised all genera of disciplines never paved ways to nourish and flourish the freedom of thought, research and expression. Ultimately, it is the scientific temperament of the scientists as well as the rationalists that ignited the minds of the common to churn over the dogmas and triumphs at the end. Brecht using his craftsmanship has delineated it vividly in the play, The Life of Galileo to enact it through the technique of ‘Absurd Theatre’. The present paper tries to through much light on this conflict in nutshell with reference to the play, The Life of Galileo.