Behold the proverbs of a people : proverbial wisdom in culture, literature, and politics / Wolfgang Mieder.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mieder, Wolfgang, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Proverbs--History and criticism.

Proverbs.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (500 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Jackson, Mississippi : University Press of Mississippi, 2014.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

"The thirteen chapters of this book comprise an intriguing and informative entry into the world of proverb scholarship, illustrating that proverbs have always been and continue to be wisdom's international currency. The first section of the book focuses on the field of paremiology (proverb studies) in general, the spread of Anglo-American proverbs in Europe, and the phenomenon of modern proverbs. The second section analyzes the use of proverbs in the world of politics, including a chapter on President Obama, while the third concentrates on the uses of proverbs in literature. The final section ends with detailed cultural studies of the origin, history, dissemination, use, function, and meaning of specific proverbs.Noted scholar Wolfgang Mieder shows that proverbs matter in culture, literature, and politics. Proverbs remain part and parcel of oral and written communication, and, he demonstrates, they deserve to be studied from a range of viewpoints. While various chapters deal with a variety of issues and approaches, they cohere through a rhetorical perspective that looks at the text, texture, and context of proverbs as speech acts that make a noteworthy impact on culture and society. Whether proverbs appear in everyday speech, on the radio, on television, in films, on the pages of newspapers or magazines, in advertisements, in literary works, or in political speeches, they serve as formulaic verbal devices to add authoritative weight through tradition, convention, and wisdom"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Cover

Half-title

Title

Copyright

Contents

Introduction

Proverbial Wisdom

1. "The Wit of One, and the Wisdom of Many": Proverbs as Cultural Signs of Folklore

Definition and Meaning

Genesis and Evolution

Empiricism and Paremiological Minima

Semiotics and Performance

Culture, Folklore, and History

Stereotypes and Worldview

Proverbs and the Social Sciences

Use in Folk Narratives and Literature

Religion and Wisdom Literature

Pedagogy and Language Teaching

Mass Media and Popular Culture

Bibliography (Emphasis on English-language Publications)

2. "Many Roads Lead to Globalization": The Translation and Distribution of Anglo-American Proverbs in Europe

European Paremiography

European Phraseology and Paremiology

Origin and Dissemination of Common European Proverbs

Anglo-American Proverbs on the European Scene

Older European Loan Translations of Anglo-American Proverbs

Modern Loan Translations of Anglo-American Proverbs

New German Loan Translations of American Proverbs

A Plea for Modern European Paremiography

Bibliography

3. "Think Outside the Box": Origin, Nature, and Meaning of Modern Anglo-American Proverbs

Collections and Studies Containing Modern Proverbs

Establishing a Corpus of Modern Proverbs

Lemmas, Variants, Structures, and Length of Modern Proverbs

Counter-Proverbs, Anti-Proverbs, and Reincarnated Proverbs

Modern Proverbs Expressed as Laws of Life

Attribution of Modern Proverbs to Certain Individuals

Advertising Slogans as Sources of Modern Proverbs

Songs and Films as Sources of Modern Proverbs

Animals, Body Parts, Business, Sports, Technology, America

Life, Man, Woman, God, Friend, Time, Age, Love, Beauty

Sexuality, Obscenity, and Scatology in Modern Proverbs

When Dealing with Modern Proverbs: "Think Outside the Box".

Bibliography

Proverbs in Politics

4. "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness": Martin Luther King's Proverbial Struggle for Equality

Lack of Research on Martin Luther King's Formulaic Rhetoric

Martin Luther King's Sermonic Use of Proverbs

Bible Proverbs in the Fight for Desegregation and Civil Rights

Folk Proverbs in the Struggle against Prejudice and Injus

"No Man Is an Island" and Human Interconnectedness

New Mousetraps and Bright Stars as Proverbial Signs of Change

Proverbs and Quotations as Rhetorical "Set Pieces"

"Making a Way Out of No Way"

Proverbial Underpinnings of the "I Have a Dream" Speeches

5. "The Golden Rule as Political Imperative": President Barack Obama's Proverbial Worldview

An Inaugural Address without Famous Quotations

Immediate Journalistic Reactions to the Inaugural Address

Lack of President Obama's Earlier Quotable Creations

No Direct Reference to the Proverbs of American Democracy

"We Must Pick Ourselves up, Dust Ourselves off "

Barack Obama's Attempts at New Quotable Formulations

From Inaugural Speech to the World

Turkish Proverb: "You Cannot Put out Fire with Flames"

The "Golden Rule" Proverb as Moral Compass for the World

6. "It Takes a Village to Change the World": Proverbial Politics and the Ethics of Place

Proverbial Wisdom about House, Home, and Other Places

"It Takes a Village to Raise a Child"

The Ethics of Place in a Global Worldview

Ralph Waldo Emerson's View of Proverbs and the World

The Small and Large World of John and Abigail Adams

Abraham Lincoln's View of a Better World

Frederick Douglass and "No Man Liveth unto Himself "

The Place of Women According to Stanton and Anthony

The Proverbial Worldview of Twentieth-Century Presidents.

Proverbs and Martin Luther King's Struggle for a Free World

President Barack Obama's Concept of "The World Is a Place"

7. "Beating Swords into Plowshares": Proverbial Wisdom about War and Peace

Proverbs about the Relationship of War and Peace

Proverbial Wisdom about War

Proverbial Wisdom about Peace

"He Who Lives by the Sword Shall Perish by the Sword"

"To Beat Swords into Plowshares"

Proverbs in Literature

8. "The Poetry of the People": Proverbs in the Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson as Paremiographer

Emerson as Paremiologist

Proverbs in the Journals

Epistolary Use of Proverbs

Proverbs in Lectures and Essays

The Poetic World of Proverbs

9. "Proverbs and Poetry Are Like Two Peas in a Pod": The Proverbial Language of Modern Mini-Poems

Proverbs in Lyric Poetry

Epigrammatic Proverb Poems from the Sixteenth to Nineteenth Centuries

1. Poems with Proverb Titles

2. Poems with Unchanged Proverbs

3. Poems Containing Personalized Proverbs

4. Poems with Proverb Allusions

5. Poems with Proverbs Changed into Anti-Proverbs

10. "My Tongue-Is of the People": Friedrich Nietzsche's Proverbial Philosophy in Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Little Previous Scholarship on Nietzsche's Proverbiality

The Pseudo-Proverb "Man Is Something That Must Be Overcome"

Overcoming Old Values by Not Sticking One's Head in the Sand

"Hitting in Front of the Head" and other Somatic Expressions

Dissolved Proverbs as Expressive Metaphors without Didacticism

"God Is Dead": The Proverbialization of a Quotation

The Overman Negating the Proverb "All Men Are Equal"

Nietzsche's Discrediting of the Morality of Bible Proverbs

"It Is High Time" as a Phraseologism Calling for Change

Proverbial Misogyny in Nietzsche's Revaluation of All Values.

Nietzsche's Anti-Proverbs and Pseudo-Proverbs as Philosophical Signs

"As the Proverb of Zarathustra Says: 'What Does It Matter'?"

Zarathustra's Proverbial Stone of Sisyphus and the Eternal Repetition of Life

Proverbs in Culture

11. "The Dog in the Manger": The Rise and Decline in Popularity of a Proverb and a Fable

The Proverb and Cultural Literacy

Greek and Other Early Proverbs, but No Fable

Early European Dissemination up to Erasmus of Rotterdam

The Big Surprise: Enter the Fable

The Aesopization of an Anonymous Fable and its English Tradition

The English History of the Original Proverb

The History of the Proverb in Anglo-American Proverb Collections

"The Dog in the Manger" Proverb Is Alive Today

12. "To Build Castles in Spain": The Story of an English Proverbial Expression

Early French Sources of "Faire des châteaux en Espagne"

The English Loan Translation "To Build Castles in Spain"

Two English Variants: "To Build Castles in Spain/in the Air"

"To Build Castles in the Clouds/in the Air/in the Sky"

The Steadfastness of the Variant "To Build Castles in Spain"

13. "Let George Do It": The Disturbing Origin and Cultural History of an American Proverb

Early Comments on "Let George Do It"

The French Connection: "Laissez faire à Georges"

Lexicographical and Paremiographical Insistence on a French-English Relationship

Lexicographical and Paremiographical Entries without a French Reference

The Pullman Porters and the Beginnings of the American Proverb "Let George do it"

From a Stereotypical Phrase to a General Proverb

Modern Survival of the Seemingly Dated Proverb "Let George Do It"

"Let George Do It" and Its Connections with Various Georges

Acknowledgment

Proverb Index.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-62846-141-1

1-62674-076-3

OCLC:

881469680