Analysis Of Western Literature: A Madman, A Hippie And A Fascist

“A Madman, a Hippie and a Fascist”
(An Analysis of Crucial Texts of Western Literature) There are a countless amount of texts that could be considered instrumental in the creation of what we know as western society and the western world. These texts range from brief English essays such as Francis Bacon’s Of Studies to lengthy Greek epics like the Odyssey The nationality of the authors and the time periods in which they resided can be vastly different or very similar as well. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle are a prime example of closely bonded authors that had an unprecedented impact on western society. Whilst Homer and Shakespeare came from very different places from very different times. Throughout the semester we have studied many texts
These texts have legacies that very few things in the world could compete with, some would say that there is no competing with their legacy. Many of the authors of these texts were greatly ridiculed in their times, they likely considered themselves to be failures, Dante or Shakespeare for instance. Certainly, they never could have predicted the impact of each stain on the parchment that would forever change the world. Machiavelli 's The Prince, Plato’s The Republic and “Shakespeare’s” Hamlet had some of the most profound effects on western society. Shakespeare’s Hamlet is an extraordinary text that had very strong effects on the western world. Hamlet asks many very important questions for western society. One of the first being is there a God and if so is he dead? The following question stems from Hamlet’s soliloquy from Act one scene two in which Hamlet describes the world as an “unweeded garden” and curses the it for being “...weary, stale, flat and
Machiavelli was a man of action who cared little for “what if’s”, he sought results. This is known as the break or the is ought dichotomy. This is when Machiavelli broke away from the ideas from Plato. The term is ought dichotomy is born out of the belief that there is the way things are and the way things ought to be. Machiavelli had no interest in debating what would happen but what could happen. This becomes readily apparent in his novel The Prince in which Machiavelli outlines how to get and retain political power. One of the most crucial Machiavellian ideas was that the end justifies the means. This idea is incredibly controversial because it allows one to forsake any moral obligation, a very volatile prospect, to obtain one’s desires. This is an immensely powerful idea and very dangerous idea. One needs to worry about what they did in order to achieve one’s goal because as the victor they can justify their actions freely and with great finesse. The greatest example given within The Prince is when Machiavelli presents a story of the prince. In this tale a prince has a lust for more power so he sends a servant of his to act as a heartless butcher and tyrant within a nearby town. The most significant point occurs when the prince arrives and adorns the disguise of a saviour for the people of the town. He orders the tyrant he sent to