[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":3,"doc-seo-489270-105":59,"doc-detail-489270-en":130},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",[7,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,51,55],{"id":8,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":10,"show_sort_weight":11,"slug":12},1,"Document","Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":14,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":15,"show_sort_weight":16,"slug":17},2,"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":19,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":20,"show_sort_weight":21,"slug":22},4,"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":24,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":25,"show_sort_weight":26,"slug":27},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":29,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":30,"show_sort_weight":31,"slug":32},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":34,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":35,"show_sort_weight":36,"slug":37},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":39,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":40,"show_sort_weight":41,"slug":42},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":44,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":45,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":47},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":49,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":50},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":53,"show_sort_weight":52,"slug":54},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":56,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":57,"show_sort_weight":24,"slug":58},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":60,"data":61},"ok",{"site_id":62,"language":63,"slug":64,"title":65,"keywords":66,"description":67,"schema_data":68,"social_meta":123,"head_meta":125,"extra_data":127,"updated_unix":129},105,"en","commonplace-shakespeare-christy-desmet","Commonplace Shakespeare - Christy Desmet","","“Commonplace Shakespeare” examines how rhetorical commonplaces—portable nuggets of wisdom that circulate and accrue authority regardless of origin—operate in different cultural moments. Using a film anecdote and historical accounts of English early modern commonplace practice, the essay traces how commonplacing functioned as both an educational method and a rhetorical technology. It then links Shakespeare’s renewed meme-like traction in New Media to remix culture, spreadability, and contemporary criticism of commonplace thinking.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":15,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/literature/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/commonplace-shakespeare-christy-desmet/489270/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/commonplace-shakespeare-christy-desmet/489270.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Ben ","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-19","2026-10-01",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":29},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"What does the essay mean by “post-Renaissance commonplaces”?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"Post-Renaissance commonplaces are presented as familiar, reusable units of wisdom. They are described as fungible across contexts, authoritative regardless of the original author, and “prima facie true” because they “sound right.”","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"How did early modern thinkers treat commonplaces in rhetorical study?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"The essay contrasts Aristotle’s common topics as structures of argument with Cicero and Quintilian’s “places” for finding arguments. It emphasizes that commonplaces function as argumentative moves whose structure and sentiment contribute to rhetorical success.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"Why have Shakespearean commonplaces gained renewed traction in New Media?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"The essay attributes renewed traction to Shakespeare’s celebrity and public domain status, alongside remix culture and internet memes. It also connects this to “spreadability,” where user activity shapes the attention economy and circulation of phrases.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},489270,1791248176,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":14,"category_name":15,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":29,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":139,"language":140,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":141,"faqs":142,"seo_title":143,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":144,"read_time":145},2336478951081,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_276721f389ce27ea32af1340a28f341c","COMMONPLACE SHAKESPEARE  \nChristy Desmet 1†  \nIn a well-known anecdote from Clueless, the 1995 U. S. teen film based on Jane Austen’s Emma, Cher (Alicia Silverstone) and the snobbish Heather are conversing while Josh, the object of their mutual attachment, drives the car through Beverly Hills. Criticizing the phoniness of an unidentified third party, Heather says,“It’s just like Hamlet said, ‘To thine own self be true.’”  \nCher: Ah, no, Hamlet didn’t say that.  \nHeather: I think I remember Hamlet accurately.  \nCher: Well, I remember Mel Gibson accurately, and he didn’t say that. That Polonius guy did.(Heckerling 1995)  \nPart of the joke is that Cher actually knows Hamlet, via Mel Gibson, better than the self-styled sophisticate Heather does. (In fact, her ability to quote high literature, even without proper attribution, is a sign that ultimately Cher will be worthy of the bookish Josh.)  \nCher and Heather’s exchange about the saying “to thine own self be true” demonstrates several key features of post-Renaissance commonplaces: first, they contain nuggets of familiar, even hackneyed wisdom; second, they are fungible, capable of being moved from context to context, and applicable to a wide range of persons and situations; and finally, they circulate and accrue authority irrespective of their authorial origin. It does not matter who invented particular commonplaces or what situation they addressed. They are prima facie true and authoritative—commonplaces just “sound right.”  \nCommonplaces have always been part of the rhetorical tradition—Aristotle, Cicero, and others discuss their natures and uses—but both the rhetorical form and the practice of commonplacing was particularly characteristic of the English early modern period. In the late sixteenth century, commonplaces were new, fresh, captured only with considerable effort, and worthy of cataloging, repeating, and using in serious social and political situations. In the era of New Media and Web 2.0, Shakespearean commonplaces have  \n1 † The late Christy Desmet co-founded Borrowers and Lenders with Sujata Iyengar in 2005. She was Meigs Professor of English at the University of Georgia, author of Reading Shakespeare’s Characters (1992) and editor (with Robert Sawyer) of Shakespeare andAppropriation (1999) and Harold Bloom’s Shakespeare (2001) and, most recently (with Natalie Roper and Jim Casey), of Shakespeare/Not Shakespeare (2018). She died in July 2018 after a short illness.  \nB&L Vol. 14 No. 1 Commonplace Shakespeare – Christy Desmet†  \ngained renewed traction—in part because of Shakespeare’s celebrity status and public domain status, but also because of the rise of remix culture and internet memes and what Henry Jenkins, Sam Ford, and Joshua Green have called the “spreadability” of New Media.2 This essay looks at the rhetorical commonplace, then and now, and while analyzing the different conditions under which commonplaces are created and disseminated in the two cultural moments, also takes a look at contemporary disdain for the supposed shallowness of commonplace thinking.  \nEarly Modern Commonplace Culture  \nFor Aristotle, the common topics or topoi are general structures of argument, such as comparison, cause and effect, and argument from the lesser to the greater—invitations to intellectual exercise rather than specific content useful to different kinds of argument.3 For Cicero and Quintilian, the more direct sources for Renaissance rhetoric, commonplaces, or loci communes, are more literally the “places” one goes to find arguments. As in Aristotle, these are not specific sayings but argumentative moves (Rhodes 2004, 32). As Ann Moss notes in her discussion of the influence of Renaissance printed commonplace books on Renaissance habits of thought,“Quintilian follows Cicero in merging the places of dialectic with rhetoric,”which entails in turn a general elision between the structure and content of commonplaces (10). Consequently, there is a decisive shift in emphasis fr","cbCaisUXC6cCFIy8","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaisUXC6cCFIy8","pdf",113020,18,"English","# Commonplace Shakespeare\n## Post-Renaissance Commonplaces and Their Authority\n## Early Modern Commonplace Culture\n## Commonplacing as Educational Practice\n## Commonplaces in the Era of New Media and Remix Culture","[{\"question\":\"What does the essay mean by “post-Renaissance commonplaces”?\",\"answer\":\"Post-Renaissance commonplaces are presented as familiar, reusable units of wisdom. They are described as fungible across contexts, authoritative regardless of the original author, and “prima facie true” because they “sound right.”\"},{\"question\":\"How did early modern thinkers treat commonplaces in rhetorical study?\",\"answer\":\"The essay contrasts Aristotle’s common topics as structures of argument with Cicero and Quintilian’s “places” for finding arguments. It emphasizes that commonplaces function as argumentative moves whose structure and sentiment contribute to rhetorical success.\"},{\"question\":\"Why have Shakespearean commonplaces gained renewed traction in New Media?\",\"answer\":\"The essay attributes renewed traction to Shakespeare’s celebrity and public domain status, alongside remix culture and internet memes. It also connects this to “spreadability,” where user activity shapes the attention economy and circulation of phrases.\"}]","Commonplace Shakespeare - Christy Desmet | PDF",1790821900,28]