Shakespeare's Proverbial Language

Shakespeare’s Proverbial Language: An Index, by R. W. Dent, offers the most comprehensive revision to date of M. P. Tilley’s *Dictionary of the Proverbs in England in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries* (1950) and its influential “Shakespeare Index.” Tilley’s pioneering work, which indexed thousands of proverbial allusions in Shakespeare, became an indispensable tool, though often misapplied or used uncritically in editions. Dent builds on Tilley’s foundation while also incorporating the findings of B. J. and H. W. Whiting’s *Proverbs, Sentences, and Proverbial Phrases from English Writings mainly before 1500* and F. P. Wilson’s revised *Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs*. His index expands Tilley’s reach by adding hundreds of new entries, clarifying doubtful or marginal ones, and providing appendices that distinguish between genuinely proverbial sayings, colloquialisms, and mere sententious expressions. Dent stresses caution: not every pithy or figurative remark in Shakespeare should be labeled proverbial, and many citations in Tilley represent echoes, superstitions, or editorial overreach rather than living proverbs.

Dent’s work is valuable not only as a reference but as a methodological corrective. He identifies frequent pitfalls in interpreting Shakespeare’s “proverbial” language—entry forms that mislead, collections that postdate Shakespeare, or expressions included merely for their sententious character. By cross-referencing Shakespeare’s usage with earlier collections and contemporaneous texts, he offers more reliable evidence of which phrases would have been recognized as proverbial by Elizabethan audiences. The result is a tool that enables scholars and editors to contextualize Shakespeare’s proverbial style with greater precision, while also illuminating the rich interplay between common speech, literary artistry, and cultural tradition. More than a supplement, Dent’s *Index* becomes a critical guide to the boundaries of what counts as proverbial, helping specialists navigate the intersection of language history, textual scholarship, and editorial practice.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1981.