O Riso do demônio: o inferno irônico n' o Príncipe de Maquiavel

Abstract

This study investigates how the irony, in The Prince by Machiavelli, can be conceived as a rhetorical resource and a central dimension in the approach to politics. Machiavelli, one of the main references of Renaissance political thought, symbolizes the controversies within humanism and the tensions in the Renaissance rhetorical culture which are peculiar to a period replete with deep transformations, highlighting the opening of modernity in the phase of commercial capitalism. In addition, his work deals with the contemporary crisis of political and religious authority, contemplating the discussion about the role of political power and persuasion, thus, in the conquest and maintenance of power. The main questions in this research are: “How can the irony in The Prince by Machiavelli be conceived as a rhetorical device? And in which way does it present itself as an analytical key to the understanding of the political life?” The main findings about this rhetorical feature were that in the irony in The Prince, the prince always appears in the examples given by the author along the text, because by illustrating what he sought to discuss earlier, Machiavelli brings ironic examples that sometimes contradict what he was discussing, and other times seeks in extreme example to illustrate the situation reported. In the first case, it is a verbal irony, in the second one, it is a situational irony.