Concepts of Fortune and Virtue in the Machiavellis Prince - Book Report/Review Example

Concepts of Fortune and Virtue in “the Prince” Imtroduction In “the Prince”, the concepts of “fortune” and “virtue” are two dominant themes that have their individual roles, though in most cases they are overlapped with each other, in the making of a prince. They are intertwined with each other to such extent that one is meaningless without other. However, Machiavelli shows a great leaning to the importance of virtue in bringing about fortune. Both of Machiavelli’s concepts of “virtue” and “fortune” deviate from their traditional meanings and connotations. In spite of this unambiguous deviation from the traditional meanings, his concept of “fortune” yields, in some cases, some dual connotations that are endorsed with the traditional attributes “unavoidable” and “predetermined” (Kain 35). However, the most part of Machiavelli’s concept of “fortune” is the determination of the concept of “virtue”. Indeed Machiavelli’s “Fortune” and “virtue” are intertwined with each other, as far as a prince is virtuous. A prince who exercises virtue incurs good fortune and discourages bad luck. Yet as fortune is, to some extent, capricious and volatile, “superior virtú does not always triumph” (Merrilee). Fortune: Fate or Reward of Virtue The fact how Machiavelli treats the concepts of ‘virtue’ and “fortune’ engenders controversies on the point whether fortune is what fate yields or what ‘virtue’ contributes. For Machiavelli in the first place, people at the helms of power need to be fortunate enough to make a good start for the virtuous activities to hold their power. If fortune does not support a man of power, no amount of human effort is sufficient to take him to the zenith of his goals. In this sense, Machiavelli’s ‘fortune’ appears to be one’s fate. As Machiavelli treats virtue as the qualities that assist a prince to withstand the blows fortune, it appears to be the fabrication that a human being controls with his effort. As Nederman says, “Machiavelli reinforces the association of Fortuna with the blind strength of nature by explaining that political success depends upon appreciation of the operational principles of Fortuna” (Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy). According to Machiavelli, both good fortune and ability are necessary for a prince to hold control over the territory or states that are acquired by fortune or by ability. Fortune and ability both contribute to the mitigation of the difficulties in controlling a state or acquired territories. Machiavelli notes, “Now, as the fact of becoming a prince from a private station presupposes either ability or fortune, it is clear that one or other of these two things will mitigate in some degree many difficulties” (Machiavelli 23). But the dualism of the concept of “fortune’ in “the Prince” is often so severe that it does not yield any clear demarcation whether fortune is the fate of or the outcome of a prince’s virtue or ability. For example when Machiavelli says “he who has relied least on fortune is established the strongest. Further, it facilitates matters when the prince, having no other state, is compelled to reside there in person” (Machiavelli 27), the word “fortune” denotes to both one’s fate and achievements that are acquired by virtue. The Examples and Analogies Demarcating “Fortune” In “the Prince”, it is remarkable that Machiavelli’s practicality has a great logical support for the role of virtue or in other word “human” fabrication to curve fortune into human achievement. It sounds completely nonsensical that Machiavelli a man with the sense of naked practicality considers fortune as a catalyst in the way to power and glory. The answer lies in his diplomatic zeal that pushes him to reflect the traditional view that monarchy is the heavenly assignment. Though Machiavelli is of the opinion that fortune can be achieved by virtue, he certainly stresses on the point that fortune is a good start for the journey at the highest of power and glory. Fortune needs to be shaped into the desired mould by the human effort. In this regard, Machiavelli refers to some examples from the lives of Moses, Cyrus, Romulus etc. According to him, what fortune provides a prince is nothing but opportunities. Only a virtuous man can mold the opportunities to reach his goals, as he says, “one cannot see that they owed anything to fortune beyond opportunity, which brought them the material to mould into the form which seemed best to them” (Machiavelli 41). Both fortune and a virtuous mind are complementary to each other, as Machiavelli argues, “Without that opportunity their powers of mind would have been extinguished, and without those powers the opportunity would have come in vain” (Machiavelli 65). In order to depict the relationship between “fortune” and “Virtue” Machiavelli proposed two analogies. First he compares it with “one of our destructive rivers which, when it is angry, turns the plains into lakes, throws down the trees and buildings….everyone yields to its fury and nowhere can repel it” (Machiavelli 102). Fortune is like the raging river. Though it is destructive, it is not beyond one’s control. But Machiavelli makes the most striking depiction of fortune through the analogy of a woman. According to him, Fortune is like a woman who shows power and tries to impede the spirit of prince, if she is not resisted by virtue and wisdom. She only accompanies the young men as they are less cautious and more daring. Machiavelli says, “it is better to be impetuous than cautious, because Fortuna is a woman and it is necessary, in order to keep her under, to beat and maul her” (Machiavelli 97). Virtue and Fortune: Means to the Zenith of Power Nederman says, “Machiavellis fortune is a malevolent and uncompromising fount of human misery, affliction, and disaster. While human Fortuna may be responsible for such success as human beings achieve, no man can act …opposed by the goddess” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). According to Machiavelli, leaders in human history owe nothing to fortune but the opportunities that fortune provides them. Only their virtue assists them to reach their goals by manipulating the opportunities. Indeed Machiavelli’s virtue is something that can beat fortune and hit it in order to subdue her [fortune] (Machiavelli 97). The most important lesson that a prince learns from history is to be a man of virtue. Timo Laine says, “Machiavelli almost never talks about moral virtue” (2). For him the most virtuous men are “those who stand up all by themselves” (Machiavelli 29). His concept of virtue means a set of personal qualities that a prince requires holding his power. As Nederman says, “Machiavelli expects princes of the highest virtù to be capable, as the situation requires, of behaving in a completely evil fashion” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Princely virtue is something that enables him to act properly in proper circumstance in Machiavelli’s word, as “fortune and circumstances dictate” (Machiavelli 66). In order to clarify the idea of virtue Machiavelli provides two other examples of Borgia and Agathocles beside the examples of Moses, Cyrus, and Romulus. Though he never points out anyone to be the perfect virtuous, his definition of a virtuous prince fits with Borgia. According to Machiavelli Borgia is a “man of virtue” because he did whatever was necessary to keep his hold on his principalities. Whether his deed was evil or not has nothing to do with Machiavelli’s concept of virtue, rather Borgia was virtuous because he was able to keep his hold on his power by cunningness and cruel killing of his senators and country people. There is the other example of Agathocles that draws a clear demarcation between moral virtue and virtue as a skill. Machiavelli describes Agathocles as a man who “always kept a life of crime at every rank of his career” (Machiavelli 47). But the author asserts that all of his deeds had been accompanied by “virtue of spirit and body” (Machiavelli 45). He notes that killing one’s own country is not any virtue because it does not bring glory. Yet “if one considers the virtue of Agathocles in entering into and escaping from dangers, and the greatness of his spirit in enduring and overcoming adversities”, one must consider him as virtuous. (Machiavelli 87) Conclusion Though it is difficult to mark the point, where “virtue” and “fortune” overlap each other, it is obvious that Machiavelli is more leaned to characterize “Fortune” as an outcome of “virtue’ of a prince and the favor of fortune is crucially necessary for a prince to rise at the height of glory. In reverse, Machiavelli’s definition of ‘fortune’ largely contributes to the determination of “virtue”. If fortune is the consequence of a prince’s desire for power and glory, virtue is what he carries out to attain his fortune. Therefore, virtue is necessarily not what traditional concept of virtue yields basing on morality. Works Cited Kain, Philip. “Niccolò Machiavelli—adviser of princes.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 25 (1) (1995), pp. 33-55. Laine, Timo. “The concept of virtue in Machiavelli”. 19 November, 2008. 17 March, 2009 Macchiavelli, Niccolò. The Prince, ed. Quentin Skinner and Russell Price, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Merrilee, H. Salmon. “Machiavellis The Prince”. Landmarks in Critical Thinking Series, 17 March, 2009 Nederman, Cary. “Niccolò Machiavelli”. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 13 September 2005 Influence of the “Ascent of Mount Ventoux” on Petrarch’s Literary Career Introduction The letter that describes the ascent of the “windy mountain” that Petrarch calls “Mount Ventoux” has a deep routed influence on the poetic spirit and the life of the poet. The history of literature asserts that nature has very often shaped and determined the salient features of the works of a poet and Petrarch is no exception. On the surface level “the Ascent of Mount Ventoux” is a classic essay that deals with the meaning of hiking, scrambling, and climbing on mountain, white crowned peaks etc. But certainly there are some other meanings that lie beneath the surface level of the meaning of the letter. Amalgamation of Inner Experiences with Physical Reality It is evident that the poet travels there physically, but the expertise with which the poet expresses his supplementary feelings he experiences on the journey to the mountain allows the readers to take an obvious and vivid view of the spirit of the poet. It appears that the novelty of the experiences during the journey to the mountain evoke the spirit of the poet to emanate into his entire works. Unlike the traditional use of the metaphor of the ascent over a mountain that is void of reality that one faces in one’s daily life, Petrarch’s realism lies in the fact that his journey to mountain includes the real climb to the peak of the Mountain Ventoux and necessarily the decent to the valley ends again amid the worldly affairs: demands and expectations of daily life. Though traditionally the mystical ascent to God is associated with the metaphor of a mountain, Petrarch’s journey to the Mountain Ventoux is different from the conventional meaning. As Ron Dart says, Petrarch’s ‘The Ascent of Mount Ventoux’ embodies the emerging Renaissance and Modern notion of spirituality in which hikes to the peaks must always be balanced by a return to the valley, and both peak and hike is done within time. (Dart) The Ascent from Spirituality to Empiricism For Petrarch the ascent to the mountain is not simply the mystical ascent to God; rather it possesses the quality of “rock hard earthiness”, as Dart calls it, that take the reader back to the view of nature as well as history. His ascent to the peak and the view downward to the landscape provides an evaluation of what is viewed by the common from the surface of the earth. Petrarch in his whole lifetime was haunted by the conflict between the mediaeval loftiness of spirituality and the spirituality viewed from the harbor of modernity. Obviously Petrarch’s journey to the peak of Ventoux is an attempt to reach zenith of spirituality, but his Renaissance zeal was triumphant to bring him back to the well and woe, friends and foes of daily life, as again Dart notes, “There is a sense in which Petrarch’s portrayal of his ascent to Ventoux has a rock hard earthiness about it that reminds the reader of Moses on Sinai and Jesus on the Mount” (Dart). Petrarch was more occupied with the empirical passion for the view of the earth that the ascent of the mountain of Ventoux provided the poet. The Ascent of Mount Ventoux certainly possesses a legacy of a literary and spiritual heritage. Petrarchian tradition of using the metaphor of mountaineering therefore revives a linage of perennial human pursuit for meaning and purpose. The Ascent of the Mountain Ventoux has a deep influence on Petrarch’s poetic life as well as his general life also. In 1336 Petrarch ascended on the mountain of Ventoux. It is remarkable that he was a clerk of the papal court until the year he climbed on the mountain. In the next year 1337 he left his job in the papal court and returned to Vaucluse. Indeed this was his first bold move from the illogical faith regarding religion to a more realistic empiricism. In the same manner Ron Dart also notes, “Mountain Ventoux must have been simmering beneath the surface in Petrarch’s life for him to make this move from a busy religious and civic life to a more contemplative commitment after the Ventoux experience” (Dart). In the letter, Petrarch’s attempt to probe into the heart of history much assisted him to amalgamate the realty of his outer journey with the reality of the journey of his spirit. Apparently Petrarch seems to focus a prying eye in the integrity of history. But at the deeper level of the meaning of the Ascent, he demands more from the journey. The Letter Heralding the Shift from Romanticism to Realism The letter “The Ascent of the Mount Vetoux” envisages a major shift from romanticism to realism in the literary career of Petrarch. The beginning of the journey is high spirited and the longings to know what to be known overflow the romanticism of the journey. Petrarch longs amorously for sitting at the highest peak of the mountain and wants to see the rock ridges all around. At the beginning of the journey, an old shepherd tried to dissuade him, but his optimistic longings triumphed over the pessimism. Soon his optimism succumbs to the ordeal and weariness of the way. His naïve optimism turns to a vow to face the ordeal in order to know the unknown. Indeed throughout the course of the journey to the mountain his romanticism yields to the realism that had a great influence on his afterward literary career. As Petrarch himself evaluates the journey: My thoughts quickly turned from material things to the spiritual, and I said to myself more or less what follows: What you have experienced so often today in the ascent of this mountain, certainly happens to you as it does to many others in their journey toward the blessed life. (The Ascent of Mount Ventoux) Conclusion The realism that Petrarch learns from the Ascent to the Mountain puts a life-long impression on his literary career. Indeed it is the warning of time that teaches him to grab the chance to live that is “near at hand” as he says, “The sun was sinking and the shadows of the mountain were already lengthening below, warning us that the time for us to go was near at hand” (Petrarch). Works Cited Dart, Ron. “The Ascent of Mount Ventoux”. Clarion Journal of Spirituality and Justice 17 Mar. 2009 Petrarch, Francesco. “The Ascent of Mount Ventoux To Dionisio Da Borgo San Sepolcro” 10 Oct. 2007. 17 Mar. 2009 Read More