Date Presented

Spring 5-18-2024

Document Type

Thesis

First Advisor

Dr. Robin Bates

Second Advisor

Dr. Elizabeth Sharrett

Third Advisor

Dr. Beth Savage

Abstract

While William Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets have been the subject of literary discourse for centuries, one topic that has been less traversed is the connection between his Comedies and Niccolò Machiavelli’s political ideologies. This project will explore references of lions and foxes in Shakespeare’s Comedies and the leaders and monarchs within them to determine how beliefs about Machiavelli’s political ideology influenced Shakespeare’s literature and became symbols for leadership and power. This will be important for gaining historical context on Machiavellian political discourse and how it was represented in the contemporary dramatic literature of William Shakespeare. I closely examined Shakespeare’s Comedies for references to lions and foxes and explored the qualities of the play’s leader(s) or monarch(s) based on Machiavelli’s belief that “[A leader] must be a fox in order to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten off wolves.” My research provides an outline of textual evidence and analysis to confirm how the stereotyped presence of a lion or fox in Shakespeare’s Comedies offers commentary on the play’s leader or monarch. In doing so, it was discovered that Shakespeare would agree in most cases that a leader ought to be a lion, which symbolizes their power and nobility, but never a fox, which is far too sneaky and cowardly. Thus, it is confirmed that the presence of lions and foxes in Shakespeare’s Comedies indicates an anti-Machiavellian approach in which the pair are split in terms of admirable versus despicable leadership values respectively.

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