26 pages • 52 minutes read
Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina
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Literary Devices
Antagonist
An antagonist is someone who opposes the main character in a piece of writing. Galileo identifies multiple antagonists in his letter and devotes much of his writing to dismantling their arguments. These antagonists include people who directly oppose his ideas and people who don’t understand them. Galileo attacks them to create a common enemy for himself and the church.
Hyperbole
Hyperbole is exaggerated language that overstates something for effect. Galileo scatters hyperbole throughout the “Letter” to show how serious he is about his piety and to garner sympathy from his readers. For example, he says that if his work is not useful to the church, “let my book be torn and burnt, as I neither intend nor pretend to gain from it any fruit that is not pious and Catholic” (Paragraph 5). Galileo saying “let my book be torn and burnt” is hyperbole. He doesn’t truly mean this, but he says it to show how much he cares about being of use to the church.
Repetition
Galileo returns to the same two ideas throughout his “Letter”: his detractors care about their reputations and don’t understand the Bible, and the Bible does not contradict heliocentrism. He repeats these ideas, exploring them from different angles and integrating them in different ways. This technique gives the reader a thorough understanding of Galileo’s position and little room for doubting Galileo’s commitment or his understanding of his situation.
Passive Voice
Galileo often uses the passive voice throughout his letter. The passive voice describes what is done to something, instead of describing what something does. (“He is being eaten by a bear” is passive, whereas “the bear eats him” is active.) In the passive voice, you don’t need to refer to the person or thing that does an action at all (as in “He is being eaten”), which means it’s easier to either remove blame or indirectly imply it. For example, he says of the Bible, “Of astronomy […] so little is found that none of the planets except Venus are so much as mentioned” (Paragraph 10). He does not say who does the finding. Galileo uses this device to avoid indicting anyone specifically. This way, he can avoid attacks from people he insults and avoid offending anyone who reads his letter and disagrees with him.
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