Shakespeare S Machiavellian Characters and the Prince

Machiavelli and Shakespeare: The Influence of Machiavelli on Shakespeare's Plays The Italian Renaissance-era philosopher and political adviser Nicolo Machiavelli is one of the most famous and infamous writers on the subject of politics. Despite the common use of the synonym Machiavellian for evil, Machiavelli's seminal tract The Prince was considered so ground-breaking because of his emphasis on the practical nature of holding principalities versus a philosophy of the divine right of kings. Cunning rather than religion was the reason leaders triumphed, according to Machiavelli.

Machiavelli was not necessarily opposed to democracy but rather advocated strong-armed techniques because simply from the prince's perspective that these methods were superior in holding territories. Machiavelli offered hard-headed words of wisdom versus ethical theories. Machiavelli's unsentimental and irreligious attitude towards kingship was very controversial at the time and influenced many of the depictions of villains in the Elizabethan playwright William Shakespeare's plays, including Julius Caesar, Macbeth and Richard III.

From a modern reader's perspective, some of Machiavelli's advice is quite sensible, including that "a wise prince ought to hold a third course by choosing the wise men in his state, and giving to them only the liberty of speaking the truth to him .. but he ought to question them upon everything, and listen to their opinions, and afterwards form his own conclusions" (XXII). This advice against flattery can be seen in many of Shakespeare's plays, including Julius Caesar.

Julius Caesar is suspicious of Cassius, one of the main conspirators against him but says he prefers to have men around him who are "fat" while "Cassius has a lean and hungry look. / He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous" (1.2). Caesar's refusal to heed men who warn him, like the soothsayer, and his determination not to look weak when his wife Calpurnia begs him not to go to the Capital ultimately leads to his assassination.

He is afraid of men who think too much and dies as a result of poor, flattering advice to ignore the danger of Cassius and his own arrogance. Machiavelli is also quite explicit that rulers that hold their position must focus on what they seem to be like, versus how they really are. "..it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them ..

to have them and always to observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright .. you may be able and know how to change to the opposite" (XVIII). These words are directly echoed in Shakespeare's Macbeth. Lady Macbeth advises Macbeth to "look like the innocent flower, / But be the serpent under't" (I.V).

Macbeth's bloody reign has also been characterized as Machiavellian, given the fact that it began with violence and Macbeth views such violence as necessary to secure his throne. He even kills his dear friend Banquo when he suspects Banquo does not support him anymore. "I am in blood / Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,/Returning were as tedious as go o'er" (III.3).

This reflects Machiavelli's advice that kingdoms that are won by blood with resistant populations (as Macbeth is afflicted with, by virtue of his own choice) must be ruled with a heavy hand. Macbeth's ultimate end suggests that Machiavelli is ultimately incorrect in his idea that ethics can be divorced from politics. Even though Macbeth is willing to do everything he possibly can to secure the throne, ultimately both the common people and heaven rise against him and he is unseated.

His ultimate arrogance is when he believes that because the witches tell him that no man born of women can kill him that he is invincible. He learns that his enemy Macduff was ripped from his mother's womb in a Caesarian birth, which means that he has only misinterpreted the witches' words as they serve his foolish ambitions, not actual truth.

Shakespeare's plays suggest that it is a dangerous thing to kill a king and terrible supernatural and natural consequences are suffered by Macbeth, the conspirators against Caesar, and also Richard III who conspires to gain the throne of England by any means possible. In Shakespeare's plays, Machiavellian and self-interested actions only secure the throne in the short-term rather than the long-term. Machiavelli might counter this assertion by noting that he advised that it was better to be feared than to be loved but rulers must avoid being hated.

"A prince ought to inspire fear in such a way that, if he does not win love, he avoids hatred; because he can endure very well being feared whilst he is not hated, which will always be as long as he abstains from the property of his citizens and subjects and from their women" (XVII). Rulers like Macbeth who go too far and actively impinge upon citizen's rights will always be hated. This is also seen in.