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Category: Metafolklore (Folklore about Folklore)

Photo of a statue of Shakespeare, full length, facing front.

Proverbs, Myths, and “The Bard”: Are We Really “Quoting Shakespeare”?

Posted by: Stephen Winick

The popular essay often known as "You Are Quoting Shakespeare," suggests that many common phrases have their origin in Shakespeare's works. This post shows that most of those phases were proverbial folklore, known well before Shakespeare's time. It suggests that attributing them to Shakespeare is a form of what Stephen Jay Gould called a "Creation Myth," and that the credit for many of the phrases should go to ordinary speakers of English. It argues that part of Shakespeare's greatness lay in his ability to use such phrases to create natural dialogue.