Machiavellian Rhetoric From the Counter-Reformation to Milton

Taking the rhetorical Machiavel as a point of departure, Victoria Kahn argues that this figure is not simply the result of a naïve misreading of Machiavelli but is attuned to the rhetorical dimension of his political theory in a way that later thematic readings of Machiavelli are not. Her aim is to provide a revised history of Renaissance Machiavellism, particularly in England: one that sees the Machiavel and the republican as equally valid-and related-readings of Machiavelli's work.
In this revised history, Machiavelli offers a rhetoric for dealing with the realm of de facto political power, rather than a political theory with a coherent thematic content; and Renaissance Machiavellism includes a variety of rhetorically sophisticated appreciations and appropriations of Machiavelli's own rhetorical approach to politics. Part I offers readings of The Prince, The Discourses, and Counter-Reformation responses to Machiavelli. Part II discusses the reception of Machiavelli in sixteenth-and seventeenth-century England. Part III focuses on Milton, especially Areopagitica, Comus, and Paradise Lost.