/lit/ - Literature

>>23092508
Incorrect, it was this fucking wop
(This post brought to you by the Straussian gang)

I’ve been reading some of the plays and letters of Machiavelli recently and i thought I’d do a short write up of my thoughts. Machiavelli is a much-abused writer by both his fans and his critics: Both seem to wish him the monster they expect him to be. But nothing humanises like familiarity, and though i never shared the aforementioned views, i want to talk about Machiavelli ‘historico, comico et tragico’ as he signs himself—the author, ‘historical, comic and tragic’—through ‘la mandragola’ and his personal letters.
Machiavelli says in one of his letters that ‘the end of a comedy is to hold a mirror to private life’; Comedy is a heightened reflection of the everyday, which uses transgression of social mores to both create humour and reaffirm these very values. It is interesting to see, then, the Florence Machiavelli mirrors in La Mandragola, and how it reflects what he valued and cherished. As a brief summary, La Mandragola is a play about cuckoldry. In the play, the young gentleman ‘Callimaco’ returns to Florence from France with the intention of wooing a fabled beauty ‘Lucrezia’. However, upon arriving he finds Lucrezia is already married, so Callimaco and his servant must contrive a way around her husband and into her bed. Finding out that the couple are having trouble conceiving, the two hatch a plan involving an ersatz cure made of the root of a Mandrake. Disguised as a doctor, Callimaco offers Nicia (the husband) the potion, but warns him that the first person to sleep with the woman who takes it will die soon after. cooperating with a corrupt Friar, the pair trick Nicia into forcing a disguised Callimaco to have sex with Lucrezia to draw off the mandrakes curse, with the play resolving in Lucrezia giving Callimaco an open invitation to come back whenever he wants. A fairly standard plot of New Comedy, but the abnormal resolution brings the comic tropes into a different light.

Discuss him and your thoughts on him and controversies .
My opinion is that he was a republican , he was not a lover of authoritarians .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niccol%C3%B2_Machiavelli
https://www.iep.utm.edu/machiave/
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/machiavelli/

>ermm, when seeking more power you should rather focus on being feared rather than loved, because doing both doesn't usually work out.

WTFFFFFF??!?! MASTERMIND!!!! THE SECRET [BANNED] GUIDE TO CONTROLLING AND MANIPULATING PEOPLE! THIS MAN'S FAUSTIAN STRUGGLE IS HOW I CAN HAVE MY EX GIRLFRIEND COME BACK!

>I'm also balding btw

QUITE THE MACHIAVELLIAN STRUGGLE YOU GOT THERE HUH? THAT'S A NEW WORD I LEARNT FROM YOUTUBE, YOUR TEACHINGS 'VELLI! THANKS SO MUCH, GENIUS

I want to learn how to manipulate people and control them. Perhaps a stupid goal but even so I am committed to it.

>writer lived poverty
>had a house, a wife, food, and books
Right....

general book recs for political theory welcome.
Personally I realized that Machiavelli explains the ways to ensure obedience of one's people but I'm wondering if there is a book that deals with the situation where people are obedient but anti social and "extreme" measures need to be made to make sure people socialize with each other.
Like maybe a book on how to start and maintain a cult but I'm not getting anything definitive and most search results are about getting people out of cults so that's unfortunate.

I mean it has to be. He's described as a textbook sociopath. Nobody would ever join his fiefdom or even hang out with him as a fellow noble. The dude would have no friends.

>>20516279

What books would you recommend for a woman going through/starting a divorce after being cheated on?

Don't worry, I'm not a roastie nor simping. The more that this woman takes from her ex/more she moves on, it benefits me. I need some books to put in her ereader.

Mmm

>Theories on warfare get proven wrong after disasterous defeat
>ousted from diplomatic position
>write edgy political book LARPing as an advisor to a tyrsnt
>fail to get Lorenzo Medici to give you a new job
>get banned from Florence
>hated for the next 400 years
>only political hacks and self-help grifters like you

Why do people pretend this guy was a mastermind or a serious thinker?

The end justifies the means.
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Thoughts on this chad

>>14172545

Based wholesome, well adjusted poetry lover.

>>13882271
>actually believing this

What are some funny counter-mainstream though defensible interpretations of well-known books?

Where should I start lads?

>>13426944
>recommends the greeks for a resource to understand philosophy of science
>calls me a brainlet
O.K.

>tfw have to make a thesis on Machiavelli of like 80 pages
Give me ideas, anything is good. Just give me something.

hey /lit/,

In the coming days I have to give some lessons to a class of 16-year olds about the Renaissance and most importantly humanism.

Recenty I've read 'the Ruler' by Machiavelli and I was very impressed. I would like to put him in to the spotlight during these lessons, though I'm in doubt if he can be considered a humanist or not.

So, tell me /lit/: Machiavelli: humanist or not?

>>13060044

>>12740994
Very clever move, anon