셰익스피어와 마키아벨리 = Shakespeare and Machiavelli

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Niccolo Machiavelli was denounced as a man of perfidy, fraud, dissembling by the 16 century Europeans in general, and the Elizabethan playwriter in particular. Such blame may be attributed to his major books entitled, The Prince and The Discourses, in which he stated, inter alia, that a prince may justly be ignorant of moral norms in favor of raison d'e｀tat, whenever it is deemed necessary for the creation and maintenance of a state. He further stated that religion was necessary to facilitate the dominion of the ruler by making people humiliate and obedient. He raised an objection to the involvement of a religious entity in secular affairs, such as organizing and maintaining an army, collecting taxes, and running a government. Innocent Gentillet, a French Hugenot, named him a devil, murderer, poisoner, and monster.
However, Machiavelli is considered a humanist in the sense that he wrote homiletic treatises on political life based on classical Greek and Latin sources. He attacked tyranny and civic corruption and supported liberty, republic and civic spirits. In addition he separated politics from theology and challenged the secular authority of the Roman Catholic church. His books show that this universe is peopled by ordinary human beings not by saints. Moral ambiguity in political life implies that there exists the need for immorality in private life. Machiavelli exerted a great influence on the Elizabethan playwriter through his humanism and his utilitarian political theory.
Shakespeare adopted Machiavellism in his plays such as Henry VI, Richard IE, Titus Andronicus, The Merchant of Venice, Othello and Hamlet. While there are certain merits in machiavelli's raison d'etat and virtu, Shakespeare tried to show through his plays that there are always something in the universe that cannot be explained by reason and logic. Shakespeare has drawn more disorderly, varied, and realistic world in these plays. Dualistic values of good and evil don't appear to govern the political world as seem to be asserted by Machiavelli. However, Shakespeare's plays show host of social and ethical values contributing to the creation of a comprehensive, multi-dimensional world.