Shakespeare & Early Modern Proverbial Culture

Conference Programme

Proverbs & Popular Wisdom in Early Modern Literature and Culture

Brynmor Jones Library, University of Hull, 1-3 July 2026

Wednesday 1 July

4pm: Registration & Tea (TR1)

5pm: Welcome – Richard Meek and Mel Evans

Plenary 1 – Neil Rhodes (University of St Andrews), ‘Shakespeare’s Creative Commons’ (TR3)

6pm: Drinks reception (Art Gallery, University library)

Thursday 2 July

9.30-11.00am

Panel 1A – Shakespeare and the Politics of Proverbial Wisdom (TR2)

Chair: Janet Clare

  • Laurence Publicover (University of Bristol), ‘Shaming the Devil in 1 Henry IV’
  • Tibor Fabiny (Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary), ‘“Redeeming Time”: The Proverbial, Biblical, and Emblematic Background of a Shakespearean Phrase’
  • Z.I. Mahmud (Independent Researcher, Bangladesh) [online], ‘“Speak What We Feel”: Broken Proverbs and the Ruin of Wisdom in King Lear’

11am: Coffee (TR1)

11.30-1pm

Panel 2A – Ben Jonson, Commonplacing, and Print Culture (TR2)

Chair: Jason Lawrence

  • Jane Rickard (University of Leeds), ‘The Embroidering of Discourse: Proverbs, Play-Particles, and Sententia in the Works of Ben Jonson’
  • Ayako Hisanaka (King’s College London), ‘Shakespeare Before Canon: Extracting Much Ado About Nothing in British Library MS Hargrave 205’
  • Luisa Signorelli (University College London), ‘Proverbs, Precepts, and Examples: The Eighteenth-Century Anthology and the Morality of Shakespeare’s Passages’

Panel 2B – Proverbial Identities (TR4)

Chair: Emma Venter

  • Nora Galland (University of Western Brittany) [online],‘“Or Else I Am a Turk”: Conversion, Credibility, and Racial Common Sense in Early Modern Proverbial Speech’
  • Ezra Horbury (University of York), ‘“Shrunk up and sapless”: Popular Mockery and Sexual Dysfunction’
  • Chahra Beloufa (North Private College of Nursing, Saudi Arabia) [online], ‘“Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks”: The Pragmatics of Proverbial Gratitude in Shakespeare’

1pm: Lunch (TR1)

2-3pm: Plenary 2 – Jennifer Richards (University of Cambridge), ‘Shape-shifting Sentences’ (TR2)

Chair: Mel Evans

3pm: Tea (TR1)

3.30-5pm

Panel 3A – Milton and Seventeenth-Century Poetry (TR2)

Chair: Jane Rickard

  • Paul Hammond (University of Leeds) [online], ‘Milton’s Seductive Proverbs’
  • Louis Cameron (University of Cambridge), ‘Proverbial Wisdom, Irony, and Authority in Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes’
  • Richard Danson Brown (The Open University), ‘The Winner Takes it All: Proverbs and Poetry’

Panel 3B – Italian Proverbs, Humanism, and Cross-Cultural Exchange (TR4)

Chair: Andrew Hui

  • Jason Lawrence (University of Hull), ‘“They will somewhat helpe and delighte Gentlemen … that desire the knowledge of the Italian tong”: Italian Proverbs and Modern Language Learning in Shakespeare’s England’
  • John Nassichuk (Western University) [online], ‘Collecting Wisdom on the Banks of the Rialto: Marcantonio Sabellico’s Exemplorum libri decem in the Context of Venetian Humanism’
  • Shaun Midanik (University of Toronto) [online], ‘Proverbs in Print: “Reading” Illustrated Adages in the Proverbi Figurati (1678)’

5pm Short break

5.30pm: Public talk/Plenary 3 – Andrew Hui (National University of Singapore), ‘Wisdom and Folly: Aphorisms from Erasmus to AI’ (TR3)

Chair: Stewart Mottram

7:30pm: Conference dinner (Marrakech Restaurant, 58 Princes Avenue, Hull)

Friday 3 July

10.00-11.30am

Panel 4A – Digital Methods and Early Modern Proverbial Language (TR2)

Chair: Mel Evans

  • Aoife Curran (University of Hull, DAIM), ‘Natural Language Processing and the Detection of Proverbial Expressions in Shakespeare’s Texts’
  • Amy Weng (Princeton University) [online], ‘Godly and Learned Divines: Analyzing Preachers’ Styles by Quantifying Cited Authorities in Early English Printed Sermons’
  • Iryna Voloshchuk & Nataliia Glinka (National Technical University of Ukraine) [online], ‘Pedagogical Paremia in Different Linguistic Cultures’

Panel 4B – Proverbial Material in New Contexts (TR4)

Chair: Jane Rickard

  • Elisabeth Lutteman (Independent Scholar) [online], ‘Proverbial Snatches? Songs and Sayings in Early Modern English Plays’
  • Amanda Wang (Independent Researcher, China), ‘Making Friends with Proverbs: Matteo Ricci and Early Modern Aphoristic Encounters’

11.30am: Coffee (TR1)

12.00pm: Plenary 4 – Laura Estill (St. Francis Xavier University), ‘Proverbs and Commonplaces: Shared Language in Gascoigne and Kinwelmersh’s Jocasta’ (TR3)

Chair: Richard Meek

1pm: Lunch & close of conference (TR1)

Proverbs & Popular Wisdom in Early Modern Literature and Culture programmeDownload