Elizabethan View of Machiavelli as ‘Evil' (Book Review Sample)

Name Professor Course Date Elizabethan View of Machiavelli as ‘Evil’ Elizabethan writers were among the major critics of Machiavelli’s work, where they depicted him as an evil and unjust individual. Writers such as Shakespeare continuously invoked Machiavelli’s work in their writings, in which they portrayed him as advocating for violence, gang society and deviance. In fact, there are some religious and political reasons that motivated these writers to invoke Machiavelli’s ideas of the society and religion in their works and attempted to portray a negative picture of the Italian author. It has long been thought that Machiavelli’s ideas were antireligious, but is imperative to understand that most of the Elizabethan writers were British writers of the Queen Elizabeth I era. Why was this so? Arguably, the sociopolitical and religious system of governance in Britain at the time was threatened by Machiavelli’s Ideas of freedom from religious dictatorship and injustice in the society. These aspects were largely lacking in the Elizabethan Britain. In his work, “the Jew of Malta”, Christopher Marlowe represents a prologue that depicts the evils that humans cause on others. The work is about a Maltese Jew, who was barbaric and vengeful against the authorities of the city of Malta. In the prologue, it is evident that the character most likely reflects or depicts the evil Machiavelli. In fact, the characters name is “Machiavel”, which suggests that Marlowe invoked Machiavelli’s name in his work (Boas 29). It is also evident that the character was used to display the evils of deviance associated with Machihavelli’s ideas, introduced the “power is immoral” theory. In fact, this is one of Machiavelli’s ideas of society. In this context, it is worth saying that Marlowe was displaying Machiavelli as an evil Jew because Christians in the era believed that the Jews were antichrists. In “The Prince”, Machiavelli used some characters and a society similar to the situation in Britain. Under the absolute rule of the Monarch, Britain was leading a dark path towards social conflict because power was concentrated in the palace while common people were subjected to authoritarian rule of the kings and queens. Machiavelli was a critic of this form of rule. Marlowe was a proponent of the British sociopolitical and religious system. It appears that he was angered by Machiavelli’s ideas, which made him taint the picture of Machiavelli as an evil and unjust person. In addition, Marlowe’s play “the massacre at Paris” provides some additional evidence of how the Elizabethan writers thought about Machiavelli’s political and religious ideas (Boas 127). In this play, there is a lot of stabbing and killings, which are perpetrated by gangs and deviant citizens in Paris (Marlowe 34). It appears that Marlowe was attempting to make the Britons fear or reject Machiavelli’s literature. He portrayed Machiavelli’s idea of society as lawless and full of gangs ready to kill a person at sight (Mackenzie 148). This was a direct attack on Machiavelli’s play “The Prince”. William Shakespeare, an Elizabethan writer, was also a critique of Machiavelli’s idea of a political system. In “the prince”, Machiavelli’s central theme revolves around the difficulty facing European societies as they attempted to consolidate illegitimate dynasties on the thrones, which caused violence and massive loss of life. The Elizabethan writers did not like this idea because they thought it was directly attacking the British political and social system (Bloom 53). In “Macbeth”, Shakespeare depicts Machiavelli as an evil woman. In this play, Lady Macbeth represents a similar character with Catherine De Medici in Marlowe’s “the massacre at Paris”. Both women are evil, ruthless and power hungry. They represent the tools that were used to destroy Christianity, especially Protestants. It appears that the writers were attacking Catholicism as a religion and instead advocated for Protestantism as the right religion. Therefore, the main idea was to display Machiavelli as the evil woman whose main purpose is to destroy the religion. However, it is worth noting that the criticism was largely...