I couldn’t resist reblogging a link to this article about some of my favorite subjects, writing, Shakespeare and astrology:

“The Bard used astrological nuance to move along his plots and refine his characters, astrologer says.”

In the final act of Shakespeare’s tragedy Julius Caesar, Mark Anthony describes Brutus, the man who came not to praise Caesar but to bury him, in these glowing terms:

“His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him that Nature might stand up and say to all the world, this was a man!”

This is rare praise indeed for an assassin.  But Brutus had dispatched a megalomaniac (Caesar) whose ambitions threatened the cherished way citizens governed themselves in ancient Rome.

Unlike most modern theatre-goers, those sitting in the Globe Theatre audience when the play was first performed 450 years ago would have been much more likely to pick up on the fact that the “elements” Anthony refers to are the astrological elements medieval astrologers considered when making judgments about the temperamental qualities inherent in man’s nature.  Most in the audience would have brought to the theatre at least a fundamental awareness of the concepts involved. . . More of this article (by Edward Snow, Managing Editor of the Astrology News Service) at  http://astrologynewsservice.com/news/was-shakespeare-a-fan-of-astrology/