bstract This custom dissertation argues for the centrality of a category whose importance has been occluded by modernity's relentless demand for novelty: custom in early modern literature. It seeks to account for custom's appeal to early modern writers in verse and prose, particularly as they confronted the history of their generic forms, they language, and their native land. When discussed by literary scholars, custom usually is employed as a loose synonym for popular, rustic traditions. But, as intellectual historians have long recognized, early modern lawyers and historians considered custom to be synonymous with England's common law, imagined to have existed since "time out of mind." I argue that writers such as Thomas More, Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, and Anne Clifford draw upon the legal discourse of custom in order to construct national and literary history in terms of a continuous, unbroken past. While the appeal to custom might work to entrench backward looking impulses, I propose that it also opened up poetic and political possibilities at a time when novelty was viewed as anarchic and insurrectionary. A legally-inflected iteration of custom forms the basis of More's society without private property and repairs Sidney's ideal kingdom; it authorizes Clifford's resistance against patriarchal inheritance and Spenser's imposition of Latin meter onto English verse and of English law onto Irish land. Custom, which governed the ownership and devolution of land, emerges conspicuously in these texts when land holding is at issue, whether in familial property disputes or in large-scale imperial claims
Characteristics of a Good Personal Statement But before you write a single word, make sure you know what is expected of a successful college essay writing. A good essay... -Is thoughtful and honest A strong personal statement is reflective; that is, it demonstrates that you have thought about and gained a clear perspective on your experiences and what you want in your future. It does not simply tell a reader what you think he/she wants to know. Instead, it gives the reader a vivid and compelling picture of you--in essence, telling the reader what he or she should know about you. Remember that the focus of the essay is YOU--your achievements, your obstacles, your goals, your values -Strives for depth, not breadth A good essay is not a list of your accomplishments. Remember when your mom told you that it's quality, not quantity, that counts? Well, the same adage applies for your college essay. A reader will be much more interested in how your experience demonstrates the theme of your essay, not the number of accomplishments you can list. What is NOT interesting: an essay that devotes one paragraph each to a variety of different topics. This type of approach denies you the ability to give depth to your essay.