Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Text and Abbreviations
- Preface
- Dedication
- 1 Shakespeare and Machiavelli
- 2 Richard II and the Bullingbrook Affair: Subtle Rhetoric and a ‘Silent King'
- 3 Henry V: The Prince and Cruelty
- 4 King John: Cruelty and the Action of Conscience
- 5 Julius Caesar: Conscience and Conspiracy
- 6 Antony and Cleopatra: Magnanimity and a Machiavellian Erotics
- Bibliography
- Index
1 - Shakespeare and Machiavelli
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 February 2024
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Text and Abbreviations
- Preface
- Dedication
- 1 Shakespeare and Machiavelli
- 2 Richard II and the Bullingbrook Affair: Subtle Rhetoric and a ‘Silent King'
- 3 Henry V: The Prince and Cruelty
- 4 King John: Cruelty and the Action of Conscience
- 5 Julius Caesar: Conscience and Conspiracy
- 6 Antony and Cleopatra: Magnanimity and a Machiavellian Erotics
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
MACHIAVELLI: IL PRINCIPE
Concludo adunque che variando la fortuna e stando li uomini ne’ loro modi ostinati, sono felici mentre concordano insieme, e come discordano infelici. Io iudico bene questo, che sia meglio essere impetuoso che respettivo, perché la fortuna è donna: ed è necessario, volendola tenere sotto, batterla e urtarla. E si vede che la si lascia più vincere da questi che da quelli che freddamente procedono. E però sempre, come donna, è amica de’ giovani, perché sono meno respettivi, più feroci, e con più audacia la comandano.
(Il Principe, Ch. 25; B 82. ‘ I conclude, then, that so long as Fortune varies and men stand still, they will prosper while they suit the times, and fail when they do not. But I do feel this: that it is better to be rash than timid, for Fortune is a woman, and the man who wants to hold her down must beat and bully her. We see that she yields more often to men of this stripe than to those who come coldly towards her. Like a woman, too, she is always a friend of the young, because they are less timid, more brutal, and take charge of her more recklessly', A 69).
DESPITE so much work on the topic, the relationship of Shakespeare to Machiavelli remains a matter of vagueness and perplexity. It used to be thought that the darker, immoral implications of Machiavellian political strategy, those which make Chapters 17 and 18 of Il Principe so notorious, occurred only selectively in Shakespeare's characters - in such obvious and flamboyant villains as Richard III, Iago, and Edmund. But this handy way of identifying Machiavels gave way some time ago to a claim, perhaps an acknowledgment even, that positive heroes too might make use of Machia- velli to obtain their ends. Black and white have long ceased to be clearly distinct from one another and approximate now to a median shade of grey. To take one example: Duke Vincentio in Measure for Measure has relin- quished his position as sage and saviour and is seen to be problematic at the very least, and in the eyes of not a few critics, even damnable.
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- Shakespeare and Machiavelli , pp. 1 - 29Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2002