Within his work The Prince, Machiavelli presents a double perspective on rulership that works to focus the direction of outlook beyond the habitual leader to leader approach we have previously seen. Breaking from tradition, Machiavelli's idea that "in order to properly understand the behavior of...
Several of the most famous stories told to young children were Aesop’s fables, creative stories designed to teach valuable life lessons. One of the most memorable to me was the fable about the lion that spared a mouse’s life and was later rescued by the...
In The Prince, Niccolò Machiavelli, the author, generally lays forth a system of ethics for rulers. Given the strength of Christianity at the time that he wrote this work, Machiavelli’s instructions to aspiring rulers are surprising. His definition of “goodness,” or “virtue,” seems to stray...
In her essay, “Origins of the Novel”, Marthe Robert characterises the novel as knowing “neither rule nor restraint. Open to every possibility, its boundaries fluctuate in all directions”. Indeed, both Madame de Lafayette’s The Princess de Cleves and Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko are often claimed to...
While the connection between Machiavelli and Marlowe is distinctly articulated in the preface to the latter’s Jew of Malta, the parallels between Machiavelli’s Prince and Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure are less explicitly expressed, but certainly no less significant. One must, of course, be cautious in...
Introduction In Macbeth, fate vs free will interpretations that emphasize his freedom misunderstand the fundamental dynamic of the play. Shakespeare introduces Hecate, the witches, and their prophecies precisely to show how Macbeth’s actions are driven by forces outside of his control. The story of Macbeth...
