This study examines the transmission and transformation of commonplace wisdom in Renaissance humanism by tracing a series of filiations between classical sayings, anecdotes, and exampes and Renaissance poems, essays, and fictions. The circulation of commonplaces can be understood either as a process of reanimation and revitalization, where frozen sayings thaw out and come to life, or conversely as a process of immobilization and incrustation that petrifies tradition. The paradigmatic figure for this process is the proverbial dance around the well, which expresses both the danger and the compulsion of borrowed speech.
Author(s): Eric M. MacPhail
Series: Brill's Studies in Intellectual History, 232
Publisher: Brill
Year: 2014
Language: English
Pages: 178
City: Leiden
Abbreviations vi
Introduction: Dancing Around the Well 1
1. In the Beginning there was Chaos 7
2. A Gem in its Setting 18
3. Words Frozen and Thawed 44
4. Rhapsody in Prose 75
5. The Mosaic of Speech 92
6. The Universal Library 116
7. In a Roman Mirror 134
Conclusion: Emptying the Well 146
Bibliography 153
Index locorum communium 163
Index rerum perutilium 166
Index nominum illustrium 167
Index Erasmianus