A "STATE-VILLAINE MUST BE LIKE THE WINDE, /THAT FLIES UNSEENE YET LIFTS AN OCEAN": MACHIAVELLIAN ITALIAN AND TURK IN JOHN MASON'S THE TURKE

Abstract

Machiavelli's political philosophy emphasizing leadership qualities, a sense of practical politics, and the intellect to attain and maintain power at all costs, has been greatly influential in 16th and 17th century English drama. In accordance with this philosophy, as expressed in Machiavelli's Prince and Discourses, the stage Machiavellian, as exhibited by characters ranging from Marlowe's Tamburlaine to Shakespeare's Edmund and Richard III, is intelligent, persuasive, conniving, opportunist and inclined to violence. A Jacobean play that incorporates two types of Machiavellians is John Mason's An Excellent Tragedy of Mulleasses the Turke, and Borgias Governour of Florence (1607); Borgias -an Italian and Mulleasses -a Turk. It is not surprising to see such Machiavellians on the Renaissance stage, but the representation of these particular characters side by side is noteworthy. Catholicism appears to be as much a threat to England as the 'Mohammedans' chiefly represented by the Ottoman Turk. The aim of this paper is to examine these two particular Machiavellian characters in Mason's "tragedy of blood" in relation to their sources and popular notions about them to show that England feared the return to Catholicism as much as the Ottoman threat

Özet

John Mason'un The Turke Başlıklı "İntikam Tragedyasında" Makyavelist Müslüman Türk ve Katolik İtalyan Machiavelli'nin liderlik vasıflarını, pratik siyaset anlayışını ve her ne pahasına olursa olsun gücü elde etme ve koruma fikrini vurgulayan siyasi felsefesi, 16. ve 17. yüzyıl İngiliz tiyatrosunda oldukça etkili olmuş ve dönemin oyunlarına yansımıştır. Bu felsefeye uygun olarak, sahnedeki Makyavelist tiplemesi zeki, güçlü, riyakâr, ikna edici, fırsatçı, sahtekâr ve şiddete meyilli bir karakterdir. John Mason'un An Excellent Tragedy of Mulleasses the Turke, and Borgias Governour of Florence (1607) adlı oyunu biri İtalyan (Borgias) ve diğeri Türk (Mulleases) olmak üzere iki yabancı Makyavelist karakter içermektedir