Making “Anything of Anything” in the Age of Shakespeare

Throughout the history of interpretation readers have been accused of making “anything of anything”: “quidlibet ex quolibet,” or “whatever you like out of whatever you like.” Looking at a variety of cases--from Montaigne’s descriptions of bad reading in the Essais to Shakespeare’s portrayals of characters who make much of little--I show how and why, in early modern culture, the habit of making “anything of anything” calls questions of ontology to mind.