Astrology in Shakespeare’s Day Astrology in Shakespeare’s Day Author Bevan Watson Supervising Editor Melissa Walter Editor Kate McPherson Copy Editor Leah Hamby Senior Encoder Leah Hamby Encoding and Metadata LEMDO Team Copyright Holder (Content) Kate McPherson Copyright Holder (XML and interface) University of Victoria Early Modern England Encyclopedia EMEE

Anthology Leads: Kate McPherson and Kate Moncrief.

 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Mitacs Globalink Research Internship Utah Valley University

Released with Early Modern England Encyclopedia 1.0a

 University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform

Intellectual copyright in this entry is held by Kate McPherson on behalf of the contributors. Copyright on the TEI-XML markup is held by the University of Victoria on behalf of the LEMDO Team. The content and TEI-XML markup in this file are licensed under a CC BY-NC_ND 4.0 license. This file is freely downloadable without permission under the following conditions: (1) credit must be given to the authors, EMEE, and LEMDO in any subsequent use of the files and /or data; (2) this availability statement must remain in the file; (3) the content cannot be adapted or repurposed (except for quotations for the purposes of academic review and citation); and (4) commercial uses are not permitted without the knowledge and consent of the authors, EMEE, and LEMDO. Neither the content nor the code in this file is licensed for training large language models (LLMs), ingestion into an LLM, or any use in any artificial intelligence applications; such uses are considered to be commercial uses and are strictly prohibited.

Early Modern England Encyclopedia

By Bevan Watson, inspired by Michael Best’s Shakespeare’s Life and Times, Internet Shakespeare Editions

Encoded in TEI P5 according to the LEMDO Customization and Encoding Guidelines

This document uses Canadian English spelling

 Document Types All documents in LEMDO are either born-digital documents or primary documents. Within those two general categories, LEMDO offers additional ways to categorize a file. Born-digital Born-digital documents are anything other than primary texts Critical Critical material, such as a general introduction or a textual introduction. Responsibilities Responsibilities Author A person, family, or organization responsible for creating a work that is primarily textual in content, regardless of media type (e.g., printed text, spoken word, electronic text, tactile text) or genre (e.g., poems, novels, screenplays, blogs). Use also for persons, etc., creating a new work by paraphrasing, rewriting, or adapting works by another creator such that the modification has substantially changed the nature and content of the original or changed the medium of expression. LEMDO uses the term author in two contexts: (1) to indicate the author of a primary work or document (such as Hamlet), and (2) to indicate the author of a secondary text (such as the Critical Introduction to <title level="m">Hamlet, by David Bevington). Editor A person, family, or organization contributing to a resource by revising or elucidating the content, e.g., adding an introduction, notes, or other critical matter. An editor may also prepare a resource for production, publication, or distribution. For major revisions, adaptations, etc., that substantially change the nature and content of the original work, resulting in a new work, see author. LEMDO uses the general term editor only in edition metadata and only to indicate when a person is responsible for editing all parts of an edition. Otherwise, use the more granular terms to describe the precise nature of the editorial role. Supervising Editor An editor who supervises the work of a student editor. Copy Editor LEMDO uses the term owner for the person who checks facts, quotations, and citations; may make formatting changes; may convert from one citation style to another; may suggest wording changes; and enforces conformity with the project style guide. Markup Editor A person or organization performing the coding of SGML, HTML, or XML markup of metadata, text, etc. Gloss needed. Copyright Holder A person or organization to whom copy and legal rights have been granted or transferred for the intellectual content of a work. The copyright holder, although not necessarily the creator of the work, usually has the exclusive right to benefit financially from the sale and use of the work to which the associated copyright protection applies. Normally the editor is the copyright holder for an LEMDO edition. EMEE Keywords Culture Learn about the customs, beliefs, and daily lives of people in early modern England. Science Astrology Cosmology Dee, John (1527–1609) Occult Published file. Updated metadata proofed Review of article finished. updated author respStmt. changed out problem link. Commented out link. Created File. Michael Best Michael Best

Michael Best is Professor Emeritus at the University of Victoria, BC. He founded the Internet Shakespeare Editions in 1996, and was Coordinating Editor until 2017, contributing two editions to the ISE: King John and King Lear (the latter also available in print from Broadview Press). In print, he has published editions of works of Elizabethan magic and huswifery, a collection of letters from the Australian goldfields, and Shakespeare on the Art of Love (2008). He contributed regular columns for the Shakespeare Newsletter on Electronic Shakespeares, and has written many articles and chapters for both print and online books and journals, principally on questions raised by the new medium in the editing and publication of texts. He has delivered papers and plenary lectures on electronic media and the Internet Shakespeare Editions at conferences in Canada, the USA, the UK, Spain, Australia, and Japan.

 Leah Hamby Leah Hamby

Leah Hamby is the primary encoder for the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Aside from encoding, she also works as an editor for the project and contributed several articles of her own. She has been working on the EMEE since February 2023. As of February 2026, she is soon to graduate with honours from Utah Valley University with a major in history and a minor in creative writing. Her other work with the LEMDO program includes remediating William Kemp’s Kemp’s Nine Day’s Wonder for the Digital Renaissance Editions.

 Navarra Houldin Navarra Houldin

Training and Documentation Lead 2025–present. LEMDO project manager 2022–2025. Textual remediator 2021–present. Navarra Houldin (they/them) completed their BA with a major in history and minor in Spanish at the University of Victoria in 2022. Their primary research was on gender and sexuality in early modern Europe and Latin America. They are continuing their education through an MA program in Gender and Social Justice Studies at the University of Alberta where they will specialize in Digital Humanities.

 Janelle Jenstad Janelle Jenstad

Janelle Jenstad is a Professor of English at the University of Victoria, Director of The Map of Early Modern London, and Director of Linked Early Modern Drama Online. With Jennifer Roberts-Smith and Mark Beatrice Kaethler, she co-edited Shakespeare’s Language in Digital Media: Old Words, New Tools (Routledge). She has edited John Stow’s A Survey of London (1598 text) for MoEML and is currently editing The Merchant of Venice (with Stephen Wittek) and Heywood’s 2 If You Know Not Me You Know Nobody for DRE. Her articles have appeared in Digital Humanities Quarterly, Elizabethan Theatre, Early Modern Literary Studies, Shakespeare Bulletin, Renaissance and Reformation, and The Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies. She contributed chapters to Approaches to Teaching Othello (MLA); Teaching Early Modern Literature from the Archives (MLA); Institutional Culture in Early Modern England (Brill); Shakespeare, Language, and the Stage (Arden); Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate); New Directions in the Geohumanities (Routledge); Early Modern Studies and the Digital Turn (Iter); Placing Names: Enriching and Integrating Gazetteers (Indiana); Making Things and Drawing Boundaries (Minnesota); Rethinking Shakespeare Source Study: Audiences, Authors, and Digital Technologies (Routledge); and Civic Performance: Pageantry and Entertainments in Early Modern London (Routledge). For more details, see janellejenstad.com.

 Kate McPherson Kate McPherson

Kate McPherson is Professor of English and Honors Program Director at Utah Valley University (Orem, UT, USA). In 2015, she began working to redevelop Shakespeare’s Life and Times, created by Michael Best, into the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Her other publications include commentary on Pericles and The Comedy of Errors for the New Oxford Shakespeare (2016); the co-edited volumes Stages of Engagement: Drama and Religion in Post-Reformation England with James Mardock (Duquesne University Press, 2014) and Shakespeare Expressed: Page, Stage, and Classroom in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, with Kathryn M. Moncrief and Sarah Enloe (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2013). With Kathryn M. Moncrief, Kate has also two edited collections, Performing Pedagogy in Early Modern England: Gender, Instruction, and Performance (Ashgate, 2011) and Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate 2008). She has also published numerous articles on early modern maternity in scholarly journals. Kate participated in the 2008 National Endowment for the Humanities Institute, Shakespeare’s Blackfriars: The Study, the Stage, the Classroom, at the American Shakespeare Center. She also served as Play Seminar Director, a public humanities position, for the Utah Shakespeare Festival in 2017 and 2018.

 Melissa Walter Melissa Walter

Melissa Walter is Associate Professor of English at the University of the Fraser Valley. Her research focuses on early modern English drama and English and European prose fiction. She is the author of The Italian Novella and Shakespeare’s Comic Heroines (U of Toronto, 2019), and co-editor, with Dennis Britton, of Rethinking Shakespeare Source Study: Authors, Audiences, Digital Technologies (Routledge, 2018). Her work on English theatre and the European novella has appeared in several edited collections, including Transnational Exchange in Early Modern Theater (Ashgate, 2008), and Transnational Mobility in Early Modern Theater (Ashgate, 2012). She has also written about Translation and Identity in the Dialogues in English and Malaiane Languages (Indographies, ed. Jonathan Gil Harris. Palgrave 2012). At the University of the Fraser Valley, she is a lead coordinator of UFV’s Shakespeare and Reconciliation Garden.

 Bevan Watson Bevan Watson

Bevan Watson was a student at the University of Fraser Valley.

 LEMDO Team The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators, encoders, and remediating editors. University of Victoria https://www.uvic.ca/
A drawing of four concentric rings with two lines cutting them into quarters. Numbers and labels in Latin fill every area within the rings. John Dee’s handwritten copy of a chart from Johannes Trithemius’s Steganographia. Courtesy of Wikimedia. Public Domain.

In Elizabethan culture and society, astrology and fate were thought to rule over people’s day to day lives. Even the ministers of the new queen, Elizabeth I, asked influential mathematician and astrologer Dr. John Dee to name a good date for her coronation in 1558.

People performed astrological calculations to organize their own lives and sometimes they relied on printed templates. Simon Forman (1552–1611) was a well-known astrologer of the time who attended some of William Shakespeare’s plays. He also kept a set of astrological diaries. Forman created charts to know when his health would improve, when was the best time to send letters to patrons, and how to locate some of his stolen belongings.

Richard Napier (1559–1634) consulted Simon Forman with enquiries about stolen goods and later about melancholy. These interactions inspired Napier to become Forman’s astrological protégé. He was devoted to astrology, alchemy, various forms of magic, and theology. He also developed expertise in the realms of the divine and spiritual, increasing his reputation. The work of people like Forman and Napier helped spread and reaffirm the belief that the stars and planets influenced earthly affairs.

Using astrology was not without controversy, however. Detractors published attacks on astrology that critiqued its reliability as well as its potentially demonic or Satanic connections.

References to Astrology in Shakespeare’s Plays

Shakespeare incorporates astrological elements within many of his plays. In Romeo and Juliet, the pair is referred to as star-crossed lovers in the prologue to inform the audience that interaction between the doomed couple is fated by the stars.

In Julius Caesar, Caesar makes a powerful assertion at the notion he could be killed (3.1.61): But I am constant as the Northern Star. Here, Caesar compares himself with a powerful and everlasting entity in the realm of astrology, the north star, which provides literal and figurative guidance for mortals to navigate the world. The reference to the stars symbolizes Caesar’s self-proclaimed power and authority over death and fate.

Within Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark writes Ophelia a powerful love letter, Doubt thou the stars are fire, /Doubt that the sun doth move, /Doubt truth to be a liar, /But never doubt I love (2.2.116–119). Astrological entities such as the stars and sun were believed by some to be the most significant heavenly forces that dictated people’s fates. Here, Hamlet tells Ophelia that she might doubt the authenticity and powers surrounding these astrological figures, but that their love is something she cannot doubt, implying that it is more powerful than fate itself.

Rebutals of Astrology in Shakespeare’s Plays

Shakespeare also portrays problems with believing that the stars dictate people’s fate or that astrology diminished free will. In Julius Caesar, Cassius claims The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings (1.2.140–141). Here, he wants to deny the star’s role in determining his fate, preferring to claim control of his life through his own free will.

As Katherine Walker, a scholar of early modern England, notes, For every figure on the early modern stage who reads the celestial heavens for causesthere are those who mock such dependence on astrology.

Key Print Sources Dawson, Mark S. Astrology and Human Variation in Early Modern England. The Historical Journal, vol. 56, no. 1, Mar. 2013, pp. 31–53. Cambridge University Press, DOI 10.1017/S0018246X12000374. Gürcü, Özge Özkan. The Interaction of Fate and Free Will in Shakespeare’s <title level="m">Hamlet. ESSE Messenger, vol. 25, no. 2, Winter 2016, pp. 42–51. The ESSE Messenger, https://essenglish.org/messenger/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/03/25-2-W2016.pdf. Kassell, Lauren et al. Richard Napier (1559–1634). A Critical Introduction to the Casebooks of Simon Forman and Richard Napier, 1596–1634, https://casebooks.lib.cam.ac.uk/reading-the-casebooks/who-were-the-practitioners/richard-napier. Kassell, Lauren et al. Simon Forman (1552–1611). A Critical Introduction to the Casebooks of Simon Forman and Richard Napier, 1596–1634, https://casebooks.lib.cam.ac.uk/reading-the-casebooks/who-were-the-practitioners/simon-forman.
Key Online Sources Best, Michael. Stars and Omens. Shakespeare’s Life and Times, Internet Shakespeare Editions, 4 Jan. 2011, https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/plays/julius%20caesar/stars.html. Jokinen, Annina. Dr. John Dee. Luminarium Encyclopedia, 24 Aug. 2009. https://www.luminarium.org/encyclopedia/johndee.htm. Walker, Katherine. Hating on Star Gazing: Early Modern Astrology and its Critics. Shakespeare & Beyond. Folger Shakespeare Library. 25 Sep. 2020. https://www.folger.edu/blogs/shakespeare-and-beyond/early-modern-astrology-critics-star-gazing/.
Image Sources John Dee’s handwritten copy of a chart from Johannes Trithemius’s Steganographia. Courtesy of Wikimedia. Public Domain.