Date of Completion
10-31-2016
Embargo Period
10-29-2026
Major Advisor
Prof. Gregory Semenza
Co-Major Advisor
Prof. Clare King'oo
Associate Advisor
Prof. Tom Deans
Associate Advisor
N/A
Field of Study
English
Open Access
Campus Access
Abstract
“Commonplace Dissidence” focuses on the use and treatment of proverbs in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English literature. I argue that despite the prevalence of commonplace books, proverb collections, and other forms of syncretic textual production, reading and writing grounded in humanist theory and commonplace practice were often treated critically or cynically during the period. Focusing on works such as those of Thomas Wyatt, Philip Sidney, William Shakespeare, and John Milton that resist treating commonplaces as universal, approved truths, I recover the dissidence and motives evidenced in the destabilization of inherited proverbial wisdom in order to challenge our current understanding of the ways in which commonplace methods influenced literary production during the English Renaissance.
Recommended Citation
Rowe, Joanna A., "Commonplace Dissidence: English Renaissance Humanism and Its Skeptics" (2016). Doctoral Dissertations. 1269.
https://digitalcommons.lib.uconn.edu/dissertations/1269