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Essay / A Comparative Analysis of The Prince and Julius Caesar: Pragmatism over Morality and the consolidation of an individual's power. Driven by a primordial contextual desire for stable government, Nicolaus Machiavelli's The Prince (1513) and William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (1599) demonstrate the incompatibility of personal morality and political success in their respective discussions of effective authority . Bringing to bear his extensive diplomatic experience among the warring city-states of Italy, Machiavelli's didactic treatise operates within a value system supremely favoring ruthless pragmatism over ethics in the establishment and maintenance of authority. If the relative liberality of the form allows Shakespeare to problematize Machiavelli's binary perceptions of human nature, his ultimate desire to preserve the stability acquired under the reign of Elizabeth I leads him to favor pragmatism rather than morality in the exercise of authority. Thus, despite representations of human nature nuanced by different objectives, common contextual priorities push these composers to present aligned intertextual perspectives, privileging pragmatism over morality in an individual's quest for power. Say no to plagiarism. Get a Custom Essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay Due to the volatile nature of politics, a leader's success in maintaining authority is determined by their ability to suppress moral reserves and to make calculated decisions to guarantee political advancement. Observing Italian oligarchies at war, rife with espionage and shifting alliances, Machiavelli proposes opportunistic pragmatism as a surefire approach to maintaining the authority of the treaty's dedicatee, Lorenzo de' Medici, in an attempt to reintegrate the the diplomatic elite of Florence. He dictates that a leader “must pamper people or destroy them,” with a high-modal tone typical of an advisory manual demonstrating Machiavelli's binary perceptions of human conduct. He instructs his reader to "eliminate the family of the previous ruler" in an effort to establish authority over mixed monarchies, a euphemism dissociating the moral implications of murder from the political advancement it brings. To address these controversial claims in his predominantly Catholic context, he cites "Hannibal's enormous cruelty" as the primary factor in the general's unwavering authority, an allusion providing historical validation of his violation of the virtues espoused by the rulers. of the “Mirror of Princes” genre. Faced with a different contextual objective aimed at both entertaining and stimulating his seasoned theatrical audience, Shakespeare problematizes Machiavelli's binary representations of human nature. Brutus is frequently referred to with the epithet "honorable", which endears him to the public for his very moral character which Machiavelli rejects. Additionally, Brutus struggles to repress his innate morality, declaring that he is "at war with himself", a military metaphor demonstrating the complexities of negotiating pragmatism and morality. However, Shakespeare, impressed by the ethically flimsy methods Queen Elizabeth used to secure authority, such as legalizing torture against disobedient subjects, demonstrates the ultimate failure of rulers guided by blind idealism. Brutus appeals to spare Antony, calling on the conspirators to be "priests and not butchers", this religious lexical choice signifying his attempt.
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