English
A text is a reflection of the concerns of its time and place. how does both texts provide a perspective of the values of its context?
Both Machiavelli’s The Prince and Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar incorporate ideas that closely relate to the contextual elements of the time. Both were written in the time of Renaissance when humanism was a strong belief and they focused closely on the aspects of political power and the way in which a leader may attain and retain a state. They both valued a nation state, political, social,and economic stability as well as military power.
Machiavelli's text is a political treatise that explains how to obtain power. Due to his past times as a diplomat Machiavelli learnt a great deal about the way in which politics should be run and the regime run by the newly empowered Medici Family. In 1512 Machiavelli was removed from his diplomat position in office and exiled due to the reinstatement of the Medici family. In the years of exile machiavelli began to write The Prince which was written to Lorenzo De’Medici as an attempt to be removed from exile and reinstated into political realm as well as to explain the problems brought on by bad leadership and the way in which he was denied his place in politics. The Prince was full of perspectives prompted by the contextual elements of the time, the main being the instability of politics in Florence.The Prince looks as Florence's limited military and economic power in a fragmented Italy dominated by the Catholic Church and threatened by powerful surrounding states and countries. The text reflects the darker aspects of Humanism of man being corrupt, self serving and treacherous. Machiavelli text relies on facts and specific anecdotes about historical and contemporary leaders for credibility. Machiavelli refers to Cesare Borgia a lot in the text as he was a successful Cardinal of Valencia then to Duke of Valentinois. He had a lot of influence on leadership at the time, we see how machiavelli has a strong amount of praise for him “There was one man who showed glimpses of greatness, the kind of thing that made you think he was sent by God for the country's redemption”, he also refers to Alexander and how he was successful as a pope and how he's had assistance from Borgia in running the state “Pope Alexander VI never did anything but con people. That was all he ever thought about.”
