Satire, or “the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues,” (“Satire”) is by no means a new concept. In contemporary times, there is an entire industry devoted to satire. Satire these days is more overt and blatant about the fact that it is satire. In Renaissance times, however, satire was subtler. It was quieter and inconspicuous, which caused people to question if it really was satire or if it was, in fact, serious.
In this paper, I will be examining two great pieces of Renaissance literature: The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli and The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe, and arguing that both pieces do, in fact, act as satire. Through highly formalized structure and often exaggerated language, both pieces critique aspects of Renaissance culture - in The Prince, it is politics and the governmental structure, in Doctor Faustus, it is theology and the Church.
Niccolo Machiavelli, born 1469 in Florence, Italy, to an attorney, came of age in a rather tenuous period of European history. France, Spain, Switzerland, and the Holy Roman Empire all struggled for control of the area; when Florence restored the republic in 1494, Machiavelli was offered a seat in the government. Classically educated in grammar, rhetoric, and Latin, Machiavelli worked as an official, a diplomat, and a militant before falling out of political favor, when he then retired to his country estate to devote the remainder of his life to writing (Niccolo Machiavelli).
The Prince, published posthumously in 1532, is, on one hand, a sort of memoir of Machiavelli’s own experience inside the sinister world of Renaissance Italian politics, and on the other, it is a critique of the unstable structures that allowed such a malevolent political climate in the first place.
It is important to contextualize The Prince with Machiavelli’s life, because to accept it at face-value, that it is no more than “a scientific manual for tyrants” (Mattingly), is not only foolish, but also dangerous. The Prince must be read as satire, lest it serve as a foundation to create the very type of society Machiavelli was attempting to critique.
Though it does read as a scientific manual for tyrants, that’s the entire point. A man who fell in and out of political favor and who witnessed the horrors of an unjust government firsthand would certainly not be leaving a guide for how to govern tyrannically. At its basest, structural level, The Prince is indeed a satire. Writes Garrett Mattingly, a now-deceased professor of European history at Columbia University in “The Prince: Political Science or Political Satire?”:
Its sentences are crisp and pointed, free from the parenthetical explanations and qualifying clauses that punctuate and clog his other political writings… It uses apt, suggestive images, symbols packed with overtones... It is studded with epigrams ... which all seem to come out of some sort of philosophical Grand Guignol and, like the savage ironies of Swift's Modest Proposal are rendered the more spine-chilling by the matter-of-fact tone in which they are uttered.
Machiavelli’s use of symbolism, metaphor, and, indeed, irony, combine to make The Prince a highly satirical critique. These devices are evident almost immediately, particularly in those statements employing irony. In Chapter 2, Machiavelli writes “I say at once there are fewer difficulties in holding hereditary states, and those long accustomed to the family of their princes, than new ones” (2). This is an almost laughable statement - at any point in European history, when a monarchy reigned, the legitimacy of the ruler was often disputed. Often, in cases of revolution, the hereditary states, the dynastic monarchs, were unfavorable; citizens instead backed rulers who were not necessarily part of the royal family.
Another example of irony can be found in Chapter 8, Machiavelli writes “Yet it cannot be called talen to saly fellow-citizens, to deceive friends, to be without faith, without mercy, without religion; such methods may gain empire but not glory” (38-39). Here, Machiavelli seems to be arguing against the temporal (empire) in favor of the eternal (glory). However, as history would prove, it is through empire that one gains glory and, in a sense, immortality. Ironic too, that Machiavelli found glory through his satirical argument for empire in The Prince.
Ultimately, The Prince proves itself to be satire. This leads us to the examination of Christopher Marlowe The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, another piece that was thought not to be satire, but upon close reading, proves that it, in fact, is.
Christopher Marlowe, born 1564 to an English shoemaker, lived during the Elizabethan Era of the Renaissance and personally served Queen Elizabeth I. Marlowe attended Corpus Christi College on scholarship for six years from 1580-1586, but never took holy orders, and instead began writing plays. In a time when the English nation was in upheaval over religious dissent between Catholicism and Protestantism, Marlowe’s neglect to take the holy orders was viewed less than favorably and he was initially denied his degree after he applied for his Master of Arts in 1587.
The University recanted and granted his degree at the request of the Privy Council, who cited Marlowe’s “good service” to the queen. Marlowe existed simultaneously in two separate worlds, one in the center of the Queen’s court, as a spy against the English Catholics, the other, as a playwright and supposed atheist. Marlowe died a tragic death in 1593 during a bar fight, leaving behind a strange and twisted legacy to accompany his incredible works of literature (Greenblatt).
One of three major dramas in Marlowe’s corpus, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, was adapted from German folklore, and molded into a riveting narrative that criticized the hypocrisy of institutionalized religion, and acted as a satire in an argument against such religious practices. Most notably, Marlowe uses formal structure, or lack thereof as the basis for his play, and by extension, his argument.
Unlike other works of the time, such as Thomas Preston’s Cambyses, King of Persia, a work written in metered couplets or any of Shakespeare's poems featuring the strict use of iambic pentameter, Doctor Faustus strays away from strict and traditional form. Marlowe’s deliberate use of blank verse, and in some instances free verse, reflects the instability of both the lives of the characters within the play and the instability of Marlowe’s own society.
Within the narrative, the character of Doctor Faustus is presented in such a way that would indicate satire. For example, when Faustus speaks, he almost always refers to himself in the third person and almost never in the first person. This rhetorical device, known as “illeism” is often used in literature to make the character appear buffoonish to the audience. During Faustus’s opening monologue, his reference to himself is vaguely comical, specifically “Be a physician, Faustus, heap up gold,/And be eternized for some wondrous cure” (scene 1, lines 14-15).
He is speaking to himself, chastising himself for his career choice, which would be at once amusing and relatable to the audience. This same idea appears again almost every time Faustus speaks. As the play progresses and Faustus’s situation more dire, his reference to himself in third person only becomes more comical, because his words are an exaggerated contrast to the actual situation. “What art thou, Faustus, but a man condemned to die?” (scene 10, line 24), is incredibly melodramatic, and a direct commentary by Marlowe on the state of the church. Faustus may be “condemned to die,” but it is a universal truth that everyone will die.
What is the most telling that this play is a satire, however, is the comical and caricaturish representation of the Seven Deadly Sins in Scene 5. The sins appear in personified form, and each sin is over exaggerated in its description of itself. Pride, Covetousness, Wrath, Envy, Gluttony, Sloth, and Lechery parade across the stage; Gluttony and Sloth provide perhaps the most amusing descriptions of themselves. Gluttony had been “...left me but a bare pension, and that is/thirty meals a day and ten bevers…” (scene 5, lines 308-09); while Sloth is too lazy to even walk on his own or give himself a proper introduction: “I am Sloth; I was begotten on a sunny bank, where I have lain/ever since - and you have done me great injury to bring me from/thence.
Let me be carried thither again by Gluttony and Lech-/ery. I’ll speak not another word for a king’s ransom” (scene 5, lines 320-23). The overdramatized characterizations of the Seven Deadly Sins were direct criticism of the Church whose doctrines believed that if one committed one of these sins, one would never be forgiven unless they sought the proper repentance.
Marlowe’s work of Doctor Faustus is a great piece of literature that represents Marlowe’s own life and struggle within his strict religious society, as well as critiques that society in the form of satire. Marlowe’s deliberate formal choices, use of rhetorical devices, and dramatized characterization make this play an excellent argument against a society that was centered too strongly around its religion.
Similarly, Machiavelli’s work of The Prince represents Machiavelli's own life and struggle within a tumultuous and tyrannical political world. The ironies of The Prince prove it to be satire, and critique the very society that Machiavelli lived, and for a while, thrived in.
