Abstract Machiavelli creates his model of an ideal prince in his famous book The Prince. He abandons the Christian criteria set for a prince, such as generosity, morality, and piety. Instead, he claims that it is harmful for a prince to follow all the moral principles, and it is necessary for a prince to be well versed in the use of evil and treachery. Machiavelli¡¦s contemporaries, including the Tudors, are shocked by his vision of a prince unfettered by the constraints of traditional morality. Most of the Tudors regard his doctrines as atheism and immorality. Only some accept certain parts of his doctrines. This thesis intends to explore how Shakespeare deals with Machiavellianism in his two tetralogies. Does Shakespeare agree with Machiavelli in the definition of an ideal prince? How does Shakespeare think of the pragmatism Machiavelli advocates? Among the kings Shakespeare portrays in his two tetralogies, I choose King Richard III and Henry IV for my discussion, for these two kings correspond to the kinds of princes whom Machiavelli wants to offer advice to in his treaty, i.e., the new princes, or the princes who gain power recently. It is interesting that although both Richard III and Henry IV are usurpers and they both adopt Machiavellian statecraft, the way Shakespeare presents them proves very different. When portraying Richard III, Shakespeare follows the convention of the hero villain and makes him a stage Machiavelli. When portraying Bolingbroke, later Henry IV, he presents him as a man who revolts against the tyranny of his king, and a man who wins the crown with calmness, intelligence, and justice. Whenever Richard makes use of evil, he arouses detest and horror. When Henry adopts evil, it turns out to be necessary evil. However, the accounts and evidence recently found about Richard show us that the king, unlike what Shakespeare portrays, is not a hunchback, nor is he a murderous monster. On the contrary, he is a ruler of efficiency and responsibility. In my opinion, the reason why Shakespeare distorts Richard is that he intentionally portrays a king who fully demonstrates the dangerous teachings of Machiavelli in order to warn his contemporaries against the danger of accepting Machiavellianism. Obviously, he still cannot appreciate pragmatism and realism advocated by Machiavelli. Years after, when he composes the second tetralogy and writes about Henry IV, Shakespeare alters his attitude and comes to realize that it is not enough for a king to be good and virtuous; he has to be wise, active, resolute, and treacherous, if necessary¡Xto put it in another way: he has to be a Machiavellian prince. To sum up, as he grows older, a powerful and efficient monarch rather than a virtuous and pious prince becomes what Shakespeare longs for. We can say that Shakespeare matures in public affairs. Therefore, we see a Shakespeare crossing the boundaries of idealism and realism.

The different interpretations of the character of Sir John Falstaff have been so controversial that at no time since the presentation of the Henry IV plays have critics been able to agree as to his precise qualities. He has been called the greatest humorous character in all literature by even those critics who have spoken adversely of his other traits. George Bernard Shaw called him "a besotted and disgusting old wretch," an opinion added to those of others who have seen him as a coward, liar, cheat, thief, glutton, and rogue. There is no denying that he is one of the most captivating and controversial of all characters in English literature.

It seems obvious that Shakespeare was interested in Hotspur as something more than a strictly historical character. The firey character found in I Henry IV is no longer recognized as the Ill-fated rebel from Holinshed and Daniel. Holinshed offers only a spark which Shakespeare uses to build a very real flame. The events leading up to the rebellion and the rebellion itself are historical, but the name of Hotspur in Holinshed is no more outstanding than that of Worcester, Glendower, or any of the other rebels. In Shakespeare's drama no other rebel character even approaches the development of Hotspur.

From 1589 to 1599, the relation between Henri IV and the Parlement of Paris was a tumultuous one. Some parlementaires associated with the Catholic League refused at first to recognize Henri of Navarre as their king. These magistrates met in Paris until April 1594. Meanwhile, their royalist colleagues congregated in Tours where, in March 1589, Henri III had transferred his sovereign court. From there, the royalist councillors helped Henri IV reconquer his realm. This, they did in spite of his religion, although they frequently asked him to convert to Catholicism. After the reunification of the two rival courts in April 1594, the parlementaires seemed to work as one and blocked the verification of numerous edicts presented by the king. Their opposition was so strong that it has led some historians to claim that it was endangering the State's survival. It slowly faded away after the verification of the Edict of Nantes in February 1599. In a pacified France, the conflicts between a king finally in control of his realm and his parlementaires became rare. The magistrates finally had confidence in the government which seemed to take adequate measures to stabilize France after more than thirty years of civil wars. / The difficult relationship between Henri IV and the Parlement of Paris between 1589 and 1599 was not created by the egoistic nature of the magistrates or their incompetence as claimed by numerous historians. If some of the Parlementaires--we will call them the "opportunists"--put their own interests before those of the realm, a majority of their colleagues had a very high idea of their political role within France, an idea based on centuries of relation between the kings of France and the Parlement as well as on the political role of the court as defined by theorists of the time. Confronted to a king they hardly knew, these "traditionalists", on whom this work will be centered, tried to make sure that the interests of the kingdom, its king and its inhabitants were protected. They would not give Henri IV's government the leeway it sought but would scrutinize and frequently block the edicts presented to them, and this until Henri IV proved that he could be trusted as the head of the realm.

This Master's thesis belongs to the field of sixteenth century studies. The text I have chosen to study is the Memoires of Marguerite de Valois, begun in 1594 and published in 1628, thirteen years following the death of this queen. My analysis encompasses both the conventions of genre and rhetoric evidenced in the text. The first chapter explores the peculiarities inherent in the memoirs genre, especially where these explicitly distinguish it from the autobiography. The second chapter examines the rhetorical aspects of Marguerite de Valois' Memoires. In doing so, I have highlighted and analyzed the rhetorical strategies employed in the text, whose ultimate intent was to convince the initial reader, Brantome, and subsequently posterity, of the political astuteness of an author who was also worthy of her correspondent's trust as a loyal ally.

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As Shakespeare composed the three history plays discussed here, English culture faced a shift in its dominant belief system from an animistic perspective that valued nature and superstition to a humanistic perspective based on reason and personal relationships. In Richard II, Shakespeare creates characters that fall on either side of this divide, and he shows humanism triumph over animism when Henry deposes Richard. In 1 Henry IV, Shakespeare shows that this binary is not so easily reconciled, and Hal (the future Henry V) creates a dual nature that subsumes the tenets of both animism and humanism. After the death of his father and his rejection of Falstaff in 2 Henry IV, Hal demonstrates that the only solution to the humanism/animism debate is to entirely reject the tenets of both and, instead, blend the two viewpoints together. The result is a newly formed conception of kingship and a hero-king.

This study is concerned with the artistic use of classical rhetorical figures in Shakespeare's I Henry IV.After the Introduction, Chapter II examines the history of rhetoric, focusing on the use of the rhetorical figures in Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, and Medieval Europe. Chapter III investigates rhetorical principles and uses of the rhetorical figures during the English Renaissance and examines the probable influence of rhetoric and the figures on William Shakespeare. Chapter IV discusses themes, characterization, structure, and language in I Henry IV and presents the contribution of the rhetorical figures to the drama's action and characterization. Chapter V considers the contribution of the figures to the major themes of I Henry IV and concludes that the figures, when used with other artistic elements, enhance meaning.

Thesis advisor: Andrew Sofer / In this thesis, it is my task to explore Shakespeare’s social analysis concerning the patriarchal structure of the family and the economic implications of this system. Four plays in particular, King Lear, Henry IV, As You Like It, and The Tempest resonate with these thematic elements. At the heart of these plays is the issue I call the paternal dilemma; the father or patriarch is a mere human, cannot live forever, and therefore needs to rely on an inheritance scheme to ensure the continuation of his line. This problem sees the institution of inheritance (namely, primogeniture) as a solution or antidote to mortality. In an investigation of these issues, I place myself in an already rich field of secondary criticism, examining how genre and family structure combine in what is ultimately a conservative understanding of the Elizabethan family. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: English Honors Program. / Discipline: English.