Hamlet: Machiavellian villain

"The new type of villain which we meet in Elizabethan drama is an image of some interest. I say "new type" because we must all deprecate the tendency to use the words "Machiavellian villain" when we mean merely a great or ruthless villain. By a "Machiavellian" villain we ought to mean one who circumvents his victims by cunning and hypocrisy—like Machiavelli’s ideal prince. Thus Kyd’s Lorenzo and Shakespeare’s Iago are Machiavellian; Tamburlain is not. The cunning villain is so useful to dramatists and has so long been part of their stock-in-trade that we tend to take him for granted. But the typical villains of medieval literature are not often cunning. They are seldom cleverer than the good character.”

—C. S. Lewis, English Literature in the Sixteen century, p. 51, Oxford University Press, 1944

Note: Despite of being the protagonist of Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet possesses many of the characteristics of so-called the “Machiavellian villain.” Although The Prince had not been translated into English until 1640, Machiavelli was widely famed to the Elizabethan dramatists as the devilish villain. What they knew as “Machiavellism” was based on a French book written by Gentillet, called Anti Machiavel which provided a tremendously useful instrument to form a model for cunning villain who circumvents his victim by hypocrisy.