What did Isaac Newton think of Shakespeare

He was a nerd, I doubt he went to the theatre much. Also Shakespeare sunk out of view in the century following his death, only later did he start becoming popular again and well known.

Catalogues of Newton's personal library show no books of poetry or by any of the classic English writers, such as Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, or Milton (see R. S. Westfall's Never at Rest, p. 581). Newton seems to have had little interest in the arts. His friend William Stukeley recorded that Newton told him that he had gone to the opera only once, and that he had enjoyed the first act, but grew tired during the second, and left during the third.

I don't think that Newton's education at Cambridge would necessarily have exposed him to Shakespeare, since at the time the university curriculum was entirely geared towards training Anglican clergyman, and focused on Latin, Greek, the Bible, and scholastic philosophy. Moreover, Shakespeare's reputation as the greatest English writer was cemented only in the mid 18th century, after Newton was already dead. On the other hand, it seems hard to believe that Newton spent thirty years as a wealthy and respected figure in London society (where he was friends with John Locke, Samuel Pepys, and leading Whig politician Charles Montagu) without hearing of Shakespeare.

Another interesting tidbit is that Newton is famously reported to have said, towards the end of his life, that

>I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.


This poetic sentiment seems slightly odd for Newton, who as far as anybody knows never actually saw the ocean. Various commentators have pointed out that he might have been inspired by a line in Milton's Paradise Regained, in which vain philosophers are compared to "children gathering pebbles on the shore" (book IV, line 330).

>>8607081
Wouldn't he known of Milton since he lived during the time of Paradise Lost?

>>8607061
Isaac Newton was an avid reader who admired Shakespeare. He once said, "Shakespeare gives me more than any philosopher, more than Galileo."

>>8607249

fake: this is based on a line by Einstein, but on his case he was talking about Dostoievsky and Gauss

>>8607081

great quality post.