In volume 1 of  Laurence Sterne’s, The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy, Gentleman, there is a reference towards the end of chapter one to Copernicus. It starts off with Tristram saying “My Father, as I told you, was a philosopher in grain,- speculative, systematical;- and my aunt Dinah’s affair was a matter of as much consequence to him, as the retro gradation of the planets to Copernicus(8): the backslidings of Venus in her orbit fortified the Copernican system, call’d the Shandean System, after his.” These references in the story are not really that easy to get on the first try but thanks to the footnotes, it made a little more sense. For starters the footnotes explain the retrogradtion, or apparent retrogressive movement, of the planets was attributed by Nicolaus Copernicus (1473- 1543) to the earth’s daily rotation on its axis and annual revolution around the sun in his de Hypothesibus Motuum Coelestium a Se Constitutes Commentariolus, a manuscript containing the earliest formulation of his  heliocentric universe.” Through the footnote I understood that he’s comparing his father to Nicolaus Copernicus in a similar fashion, because his at the Copernicus was the one for thinking that the world revolved around the Sun. This is a heliocentric theory, were the sun is the center of the universe and everything revolves around it, which was developed after geocentric theory, the idea that the earth is the center of the universe. He compares his aunt Dinah’s as in the one that started Geocentric and compares his dad the one who figures out the truth just like Copernicus did. I understood this reference to mean that he was sarcastically complimenting his father. Especially since after watching the movie it made me picture reading the book more of him just not taking anything so serious and just casual talking about things like it’s no big deal. Even when he talks about tragedies, for example when he talks about his dad calling him a curse, it felt like he doesn’t seem to care; almost like he telling a sad story to be funny and not tragic.

The reason why I picked this reference was because I took an astronomy class and I learned a lot about him. For example he was the one who started the theory of the sun is the center of the universe and not the earth. But because he thought people would think he’s crazy for thinking that everything revolved around the Sun he never really told anyone but he later wrote a book but died before publishing it. For that reason he never got the real credit for starting it until much later on in when he died; instead it was given to Galileo. I also like the reference that he does with the Shandean system; just like how Copernicus made his own thing. It’s kind of funny when you think about it. He kind makes it sound like his father probably makes stuff up just because he’s a genius.

Cite Page 55 and footnote 550