Behold the Proverbs of a People : Proverbial Wisdom in Culture, Literature, and Politics.

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 -- Bibliography -- 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 -- Bibliography -- 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" -- Bibliography -- 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" -- Bibliography -- 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 -- Bibliography -- 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 -- Bibliography -- 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 -- Bibliography -- 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 -- Bibliography -- 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" -- Bibliography -- 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 -- Bibliography -- Proverb Index.

The preeminent scholar of proverbs addresses the immense cultural impact of proverbs world-wide.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2024. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.