Machiavellian Rhetoric:
From the Counter-Reformation to Milton
Victoria Kahn

Cloth | 1994 | This edition is out of print | ISBN13: 978-0-691-03491-1
336 pp. | 6 x 9

e-Book | 2001 | $57.50 | ISBN: 978-1-4008-2128-0

Historians of political thought have argued that the real Machiavelli is the republican thinker and theorist of civic virtù. Machiavellian Rhetoric argues in contrast that Renaissance readers were right to see Machiavelli as a Machiavel, a figure of force and fraud, rhetorical cunning and deception. Taking the rhetorical Machiavel as a point of departure, Victoria Kahn argues that this figure is not simply the result of a naive 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.

Review:

"Kahn's argument and detailed readings combine to make an original and impressive study. . . .A refreshing, brisk approach; Kahn should convince."--Joad Raymond, Times Higher Education Supplement

Endorsement:

"Victoria Kahn's book will be the definitive study of Machiavellism in the Renaissance for our generation of scholarship."--Leonard Tennenhouse, Brown University

Table of Contents

Other Princeton books by Victoria Kahn:

• Politics and the Passions, 1500-1850.
• Wayward Contracts: The Crisis of Political Obligation in England, 1640-1674.

Subject Areas:

• European History
• Comparative Literature
• Political Science and International Relations

Our e-Book editions are available from many of these online vendors

Prices subject to change without notice

File created: 11/5/2009

Questions and comments to: webmaster@press.princeton.edu
Princeton University Press