Dancing around the Well

Eric MacPhail, Ph.D. (1988) Princeton University, is Professor of French at Indiana University. He has published widely on French Renaissance literature and on the classical tradition in Renaissance humanism, including The Sophistic Renaissance (Droz, 2011).

• AbbreviationsIntroduction: Dancing Around the Well1. In the Beginning there was Chaos2. A Gem in its Setting3. Words Frozen and Thawed4. Rhapsody in Prose5. The Mosaic of Speech6. The Universal Library7. In a Roman MirrorConclusion: Emptying the WellBibliographyIndex locorum communiumIndex rerumIndex nominumIndex Erasmianus

“MacPhail’s book offers a highly readable and informative reconstruction of the circulation of classical adages in diverse genres of Latin and vernacular literature in the last decades of the sixteenth century. […] The technique of using proverbial sayings in dedicatory and familiar epistles had been developed by Angelo Poliziano and perfected by Erasmus, who noted that proverbs in letters are like jewels mounted on a ring, and so promote a special relationship between writer and addressee. […] By drawing our attention to this recurring feature of Renaissance literary discourse, MacPhail makes a splendid contribution that is certain to stimulate further discussion about the humanists’ manipulation of classical commonplaces. As MacPhail demonstrates so effectively, the adages are important components of a fascinating literary era.”Riemer A. Faber, University of Waterloo. In: Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 68, No. 4 (Winter 2015), pp. 1352-1354.