Download or read book Dancing around the Well written by Eric M. MacPhail and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2014-08-28 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.