Shakespeare & Early Modern Proverbial Culture

The workshop featured three sessions examining proverbial materials across dramatic and poetic culture, translations and material culture, and the practices of using, quoting, and anthologising proverbs. These sessions were complemented by hands-on examination of proverbial materials in the Brotherton Library’s Cultural Collections and concluded with a staged reading of Henry Porter’s The Two Angry Women of Abingdon with the University of Leeds Playhouse Lab.

The opening session explored how proverbs functioned within literary genres, revealing complex relationships between proverbial wisdom and artistic expression. Dr Laurence Publicover examined proverbs in tragedy to demonstrate how dramatic characters deploy common wisdom at moments of crisis, with proverbs distinguished from ordinary speech through particular stylistic markers: couplets in blank verse, italicisation, or quotation marks. Publicover argued that tragedy as a genre inherently questions the sufficiency of proverbial thinking, suggesting both the necessity and limitations of such structured wisdom for navigating human experience. Dr Jane Rickard’s analysis of Ben Jonson’s critique of “rusty proverbs” illuminated broader concerns about literary borrowing, plagiarism, and critical engagement in early modern drama. For Jonson, the use of proverbs became a litmus test for intellectual independence, with his dramatic works encouraging audiences to think critically rather than rely on received wisdom. Professor Richard Danson Brown’s presentation on Edmund Spenser revealed how proverbs could function as destabilising and subversive elements in poetry. Through close reading of Herbert’s “The Quidditie,” Brown demonstrated how the deployment of proverbs could supersede expected patterns, creating what he termed “sacred parity” – moments where conventional wisdom is both invoked and transformed through poetic reimagining.

The second session examined how proverbs crossed linguistic boundaries and manifested in material objects, highlighting their role in cultural exchange and domestic life. Dr Jason Lawrence’s study of Italian proverbs in Shakespeare’s England traced the transmission of proverbial wisdom through language-learning manuals, particularly James Sandford’s translations of Guicciardini and John Florio’s collections. Lawrence demonstrated specific instances where Shakespeare appears to have encountered Italian proverbs through these intermediary texts, including “All that glisters is not gold” and “Fast bind, fast find,” suggesting that proverbial materials served as both linguistic and cultural bridges. Dr John Gallagher further explored the paradox of proverbs in language learning contexts, noting how these supposedly universal wisdoms encode culturally specific knowledge. Gallagher emphasised that proverbs provided language learners with digestible access to the “best authors,” functioning as a kind of reader’s digest for those whose skills or attention might keep them from original texts. Professor Tara Hamling’s presentation on proverbs in the material environment expanded the discussion beyond textual transmission to examine wise sayings painted on walls, carved into furniture, and incorporated into domestic objects. Hamling demonstrated how decorative elements supported textual meaning, with household proverbs shifting from observation to instruction, particularly in religious contexts. These material manifestations of proverbial wisdom participated in the self-fashioning of householders, publicly displaying their adherence to shared values.

The final session examined practices of collecting, deploying, and transforming proverbial materials. Dr Samuli Kaislaniemi presented quantitative evidence confirming that proverb usage peaked in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, particularly among educated men in their correspondence. Dr Ted Tregear’s analysis of Macbeth’s uncommonplaces explored how Shakespeare transformed familiar proverbial materials into something strange and unsettling. Tregear argued that while tragic theory from Aristotle onwards prescribed the inclusion of sententiae to promote thinking, Macbeth deploys proverbs as “thinking substitutes”: ways to bypass genuine reflection. The play’s treatment of commonplaces as unfamiliar, condensed, and clotted reflects its miasmic atmosphere, with proverbial wisdom becoming another source of uncertainty rather than clarity. Dr Thomas Ward’s examination of Henry Oxenden’s proverb scroll raised fundamental questions about the material practices of proverb collection and use. Ward’s emphasis on accessibility and use, drawing on Seneca, highlighted the practical dimensions of proverb collecting as a form of “commonplacing” with specific material affordances.

The hands-on session with materials from the Brotherton Library’s Cultural Collections provided participants with direct access to early modern commonplace books, playtexts, and proverb collections and lexicons. This examination of primary materials grounded theoretical discussions in the physical realities of how proverbs were encountered, recorded, and circulated in the period. One highlight of the collection was The Praise of Yorkshire Ale, Printed by J. White for Francis Hildyard in York in 1697. This remarkable text featured a collection of proverbs and rhymes “translated” into Yorkshire dialect. This text demonstrates the regional adaptation and vernacular creativity that characterised proverbial transmission, showing how proverbs could be both preserved and transformed through local linguistic identity.

The workshop concluded with a practice-based exploration through a staged reading of scenes from Henry Porter’s The Two Angry Women of Abingdon, a play featuring a character called Nicholas Proverbs who “speaks nought but proverbs.” This performance workshop, led by the University of Leeds Playhouse Lab, allowed participants to experience how proverbial speech functions dramatically; notably, its comedic potential and its theatrical effectiveness. The reading illuminated earlier discussions about proverbs as both folk wisdom and comic excess, demonstrating how dramatic performance could simultaneously celebrate and satirise proverbial discourse.

Discussion throughout the day returned to questions of methodology raised at the Hull workshop, particularly around identification and classification. The material turn represented by this workshop – examining actual books, manuscripts, and objects – complemented the digital and computational approaches explored previously. Participants noted that different materials preserve different aspects of proverbial culture: printed books capture standardisation and dissemination; manuscripts reveal personalisation and selection; material objects demonstrate integration into daily life; and dramatic texts show proverbs in social action.