Critisism on Machiavelli
The master figure of Elizabethan drama is Machiavelli. He was only known through the French of Gentillet, if that: but he was the great character of supreme intrigue that, however taken, was at the back of every tudor mind. Elizabethan drama--"the first terror-stricken meeting of the England of Elizabeth with the Italy of the late renaissance"--was more terrified of Machiavelli than of anybody. The Borgias, Sforzas, Baglionis, Malatestas, Riartes were of far more importance to the Elizabethan dramatists than any of their own eminent countrymen. Familiarity bred contempt in the long run. But during its flourishing period the English stage went constantly to the schoolmaster of manslaughter, Machiavelli--and his political paradigms chosen in conformity with his Borgia worship--for its thrills.... Mr Edward Meyer has catalogued three hundred and ninety-five references to Machiavelli in Elizabethan literature. As to his influence in England, Dr Grosart wrote: I have suggested to the biographer of the renowned Machiavelli(Professor Villari of Florence) that an odd chapter might bewritten on the scare his name was for long in England: somuch so that he came to be regarded as an incarnation of the Evil
Secondly, it was nationalist--it envisaged conditions released from the notion of a universal control (as that of the Roman Empire or the Roman Church). And what then? Well, you will ride about on an immense white horse like the young d'Annunzio, or an elephant: you will live in a palace the size of an elephant, you will have more slaves than anybody else: or if not that, What? But, of course, the end is a pretence, success even is a fiction, since nothing accomplished and terminated is worth considering. Chapman in All Fooles ridicules the popular conception of Machiavelli. It was substituting Machiavelli for Cesare Borgia: the philosophy for the fact: the pedantry and exposition for the action. The favourite of Machiavelli is evidently the individual hero. As to the third--the people--there is no room for doubt. It may be that, having suitably diluted his creed for British use, and absorbed him, this "seeing through" would ensue. To be what Hotspur called a "king of smiles," and to go about well provided with every deadly drug, was essential, Nicolo Machiavelli was never tired of impressing on prospective princes (especially new ones) if power was what was wanted. We are half beasts--that we must always remember. Here was a political philosopher, trained in a small-scale imperialistic school amongst the little factious states of Italy, giving away the whole position of the ruler, and revealing even the very nature of all authority. His influence must have been far more potent than that of Nietzsche. The Unnatural Combat, Women beware Woman, Antonio and Mellida, The Insatiate Countess, The Changeling, The Revenger's Tragedy, etc. His bold ideas, falling on the sensitive and superstitious minds of the people only just out of the dusk of the Middle Ages, full of satanic fancies, had everywhere the greatest repercussion.
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Acceptance Essays
