Machiavelli's Satire

Satire and irony are both used in the literary world in many different ways such as parodies. Satire is a literary work that ridicules its subjects through the use of techniques such as exaggeration, reversal, incongruity. Irony is the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally means the opposite, typically for humorous effect. There’s two types of irony which are: verbal irony and dramatic irony. Verbal irony is when something that is said is supposed to mean the opposite. Dramatic irony is when the reader or audience understands more the events of the story than the character in the story.

In a general sense, irony is a rhetorical device that is characterized by incongruity in the real situation and what is expected. The deliberate use of irony, especially in literary works and speeches, is used to emphasize a point. It is a language that in some of its forms understates facts, denies the contrary of the truth, or states the opposite of the truth. In all it’s forms, it elicits a similar effect to the audience. There

A satire is a piece of work that is designed to ridicule or tease a group or organization, generally for the purpose of being humorous. “The Importance of Being Earnest,” a play by Oscar Wilde, is a satire, ridiculing class, gender, and marriage. This essay will describe some points from each of these sections, as well as give a brief synopsis of the play these examples come from.

     This essay by Jeff Jacoby illustrates an authors use of ironic sarcasm otherwise known as satire to defend and illustrate his platform on his position. Jacoby uses in this essay verbal irony (persuasion in the form of ridicule). In the irony of this sort there is a contrast between what is said and what is meant.

Satire gives the novel life, just as an engine would give a car life. “When he failed to find the steering wheel, he moved over six inches, and searched again...He concluded that somebody had stolen it. This angered him as he passed out. He was in the back seat of his car, which was why he couldn’t find the steering wheel” (Vonnegut 60). Satire lightens the story and provides comic relief to the readers.

This essay by Jeff Jacoby illustrates an authors use of ironic sarcasm otherwise known as satire to defend and illustrate his platform on his position. Jacoby uses in this essay verbal irony (persuasion in the form of ridicule). In the irony of this sort there is a contrast between what is said and what is meant.

Satire is used to criticize and point out society’s flaws. The criticism is usually masked in humour. The irony is commonly used in satires to expose flaws, an effective example is John Smith’s A Modest Proposal, he effectively uses irony, to communicate his argument about the poverty in Ireland at the time. Similarly, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale criticizes the society that women have to live in. Atwood uses allusions to the Old Testament and historical events to satirize the oppression of women in political, religious and social aspects.

Nowadays, it is politically impossible to commit to paper a "training guide" for leaders. There are innumerable detractors to any possible stance or strategy a leader might adopt. As a result of this, all "training" must take place behind closed doors, far from the prying eyes and ears of the news media or the public. But this has not always been the case.

The words are critical of Plato’s and Aristotle’s philosophies. Machiavelli alludes that the human motive is to get pleasure and satisfaction and to have power to rule over people. On the other hand, Plato says that the human nature remains unchanged because people are good when circumstances are at par with their wishes; however, they stop being good when the circumstances cease to suit them. Machiavelli criticizes Plato’s philosophy using the illustration of the prince. He is not entitled to be loved by the people; rather, he is to be feared as long as it does not translate to hatred and also, fulfills his political ambition. He says that virtues are not judged by theoretical reason but by practical reason. Besides, people are always weak and unstable, and subject to whim and passion; therefore, political life commands that the strong to suppress the weak in the gladiatorial arena to attain preferential access to limited resources.

Niccolò Machiavelli was known during much his life as a part of the republican government in Florence until 1512. At that time, the Medici family took over the city and ruled under a more monarchical system. From that point until his death in 1527, Machiavelli was always just on the outside of Florentine politics. He would occasionally get work from the Medici but his tasks were never as important as they had been under the republican government of the past. As he was trying to find his way back into a major role in Florentine government, Machiavelli wrote The Prince, a manual of sorts that explained how a monarch should rule his state and why. While Machiavelli had been a strong

For centuries, periods of history have been defined by their distinct values, their tastes in art, music, literature, and politics. If you hear the term "Romantic Era" your mind is immediately transported to hear the soft music of Lizt, Schubert, or Chopin, and your eyes begin to see waves of the soft colours found in the paintings of Turner, Goya, and Blake. You might even begin reciting a line from a poem by Lord Byron or a quote from one of Jane Austen 's beloved novels. Even if we do not know specific names of people from that era, we will get a feeling, or a sense of what it must have been like, simply from the things we have heard about it. Sometimes, phrases we commonly use today are even named after periods of time in history, which characterize an aspect of this time periods values and ideals. An example of this is the modern term "Renaissance Man".

Relying on the needs of the society of that time, Machiavelli comes to the conclusion that the most important task is the formation of a single Italian state (Machiavelli 15). Developing his thoughts, the author comes to the following inference: only a prince can become a leader capable of leading people and building a unified state. It is not a concrete historical personality but someone abstract, symbolic, possessing such qualities that in the aggregate are inaccessible to any living ruler. That is why Machiavelli devotes most of his research to the issue of what qualities should the prince possess to fulfill the historical task of developing a new state. The written work is constructed strictly logically and objectively. Even though the image of an ideal prince is abstract, Machiavelli argues that he should be ruthless, deceiving, and selfish.

It is fundamentally important to preface the discussion hosted in this essay by addressing ourselves to the most mundane question-why consider Machiavelli in the context of philosophy, least of all, political philosophy? This question dominates any philosophical inquiries of the Machiavelli’s political ideologies. Put differently, do the contributions by Niccolò Machiavelli to the various salient discourses in the Western thought, most notably political theory, meet the requisite standard models of academic philosophy? Machiavelli essentially seems not to consider himself a philosopher. In fact, he overtly disapproved of any philosophical inquiries into his works. In addition, his credentials do not qualify him to be properly admitted within the realm of philosophy (NeDermAN, 2002).

The piece of work referred to is Machiavelli’s great book “The Prince” which explains the nature of human nature and the way they act badly. The book can be used as a guiding book to leaders because of the advices Machiavelli was giving to the prince Lorenzo de Medici. The relevance of this book is to understand one’s personal foundation in research therefore linking it to ontology and epistemology who both tend shape and mend the approach to theoretical and methodological thinking of a researcher. Ontology is a philosophical study which makes a researcher to believe and think more in the light of the nature of being while epistemology tends to make a researcher to believe in the theory of knowledge. They are both different but at a point they merge. They merge in trying to understand aspects of these terms in Machiavelli’s book. How both of them merge to understand the piece of work is the purpose of this essay.

This paper presents the role played by political philosophy in the development of political science and political theory. The writer argues that political philosophy served as the foundation in the development of political theory and political science, and that the shifts in theory and practice have legitimized the importance of political philosophy. The writer uses examples in arguing how political philosophy’s role was crucial in the development of political theory and in turn, political science. Likewise, the status of political philosophy along with the shifts in theory and practice is also discussed.