The Jew of Malta and the myth of the Machiavellian Knave

Abstract

Several critics have commented on the prevailing influence of Machiavelli on the Elizabethan World. In 1927, for instance, Wyndham Lewis, affirmed that: 'Machiavelli was at the back of every Tudor mind,'l whilst H.S. Bennett maintained that, '... Machiavelli is so omnipresent and important a constituent of Elizabethan drama.' Very few scholars seek to minimize the influence of Machiavelli on the Elizabethan mind. E.M.W. Tillyard in 1948, however, argued that: ' ... his (Marlowe's) basic doctrines lie outside the main sixteenth century interests.' But this is not the only conflict. A subject of a prolonged controversy has been the introduction of the Machiavellian Legend into England.