More Than Numbers: How Astronomers Named The Planets And Stars

As the Shakespeare scholar Todd Borlik has pointed out, the triumph of Romanticism throughout Europe by the mid-1800s meant that Shakespeare (though not so much Pope) was seen as a universal rather than particularly English genius. Because of the Bard’s immense cultural appeal during this period, Herschel’s suggested names transcended cultural or nationalistic boundaries and allowed him the opportunity, whether he intended it or not, to enshrine English literature around the planet first named for an English king. – Aeon