TY - JOUR
TI - How (not) to Write about Nicolaus Copernicus - Reflections on the Margins of New Biographies
AU - Bienias, Barbara
TI - How (not) to Write about Nicolaus Copernicus - Reflections on the Margins of New Biographies
AB - Wojciech Orliński, Kopernik. Rewolucje, Wydawnictwo Agora, Warszawa 2022, ss. 434
Piotr Łopuszański, Mikołaj Kopernik. Nowe oblicze geniusza, Wydawnictwo Fronda, Warszawa 2022, ss. 446
Two new biographies: Kopernik. Rewolucje (Warszawa 2022) by Wojciech Orliński and Mikołaj Kopernik. Nowe oblicze geniusza (Warszawa 2022) by Piotr Łopuszański, along with this year’s 550th anniversary of the astronomer’s birth, have triggered the reflection on how to write about Copernicus’s life and work. The article discusses popular and scientific biography as a genre and narrative model in the history of science and scrutinizes the criteria of “good biographical stories”. The work recalls examples of biographical writing on Renaissance thinkers (Leonardo da Vinci and Girolamo Cardano) and the techniques the authors used to humanize their protagonists for modern readers. The second part of the article focuses on analyzing the new Copernican biographies, noting the authors’ presence in the text, narrative strategies, and their attitude to sources and existing historiography. The final remarks concern the possibility of unifying the polyphonic discourse in Copernican studies and sharing new research with a wider audience.
VL - 2023
IS - Volume 68, Issue 2
PY - 2023
SN - 0023-589X
C1 - 2657-4020
SP - 187
EP - 212
DO - 10.4467/0023589XKHNT.23.020.17882
UR - https://ejournals.eu/en/journal/kwartalnik-historii-nauki-i-techniki/article/jak-nie-pisac-o-mikolaju-koperniku-refleksje-na-marginesie-nowych-biografii
KW - Nicolaus Copernicus
KW - scientific biography
KW - popular biography
KW - historical narrative
KW - Renaissance biography