Seminar No. 4.1.

Title: Machiavelli in Shakespeare and Early Modern English Playwrights up to 1642.

Leaders:

Sergio Mazzarelli (Kwassui Women's College, Nagasaki, Japan)
Martin Wiggins (Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham, UK)

Participants:

N. W. Bawcutt (University of Liverpool)
John D. Cox (Hope College)
Cyndia Susan Clegg (Pepperdine University)
Neslihan Ekmekçioglu (Ankara, Turkey)
Scott Fraser (University of the West of England)
Reiko Fujita (University of Library and Information Science)
Tom McAlindon (University of Hull)
Cristina Malcolmson (Bates College)
Hisao Oshima (Kyushu Institute of Design)
Jürgen Pieters (University of Ghent)
Jill Phillips (University of Virginia)
Mihoko Suzuki (University of Miami)
Soko Tomita (Takushoku University)

Abstract:
This seminar invites participants to reassess the complex ways in which Shakespeare and other early modern English
playwrights responded to Machiavelli's revolutionary ideas. For example, how did they interpret Machiavelli's insights
into the theatricality of power? Was the stage Machiavel simply the product of a colossal misreading of Machiavelli,
as most historians of political thought seem to believe? How could the general execration of the Machiavel coexist with
the celebration of heroic figures, such as Henry V, who employed Machiavellian means to achieve their goals?

Papers may compare themes, concepts, and rhetorical strategies occurring in Machiavelli's works with those found in
early modern English plays. It is anticipated that most contributions will deal with Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists,
though other proposals will be carefully considered.