Proverbs Are Never Out of Season: Popular Wisdom in the Modern Age

by Wolfgang Mieder, Wolfgang Mieder (Editor), Carolyn Dundes (Editor)

Overview

This book takes an engaging look at the significance of traditional proverbs and their variation in the modern world. From sales pitch to propagandistic tool, Wolfgang Mieder looks at how we adapt proverbs to rapidly changing social attitudes – the original wording of proverbs changes to fit modern advertising slogans or political rhetoric, misogynist sayings become feminist slogans, and late medieval woodcuts illustrating proverbs find their modern equivalents in political cartoons and comic strips. The book is richly illustrated and contains name, subject, and proverb indexes.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781433119910
Publisher:	Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers
Publication date:	05/25/2012
Series:	International Folkloristics , #7
Pages:	284
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Wolfgang Mieder is Professor of German and Folklore at the University of Vermont, where he served for 31 years as the chairperson of the Department of German and Russian. He is an internationally acknowledged proverb scholar, the author of the two-volume International Bibliography of Paremiology and Phraseology (2009), and the founding editor of Proverbium: Yearbook of International Proverb Scholarship (since 1984). His numerous books and articles are concerned with cultural, folkloristic, historical, linguistic, literary, philological, social, and political topics.

Table of Contents

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Preface

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Editorial Reviews

«…Mieder cannot do wrong as far as the proverb is concerned…I have admired his work and his encyclopedic knowledge of the topic for a long time…» (W.F.H. Nicolaisen, University of Aberdeen)
«Having done more for proverbs than anyone since Benjamin Franklin and Poor Richard, Wolfgang Mieder is still not finished with the subject…this (is a) charming…book.» (Kenneth Turan, The Los Angeles Times Book Review)

From the Publisher

Ten essays here survey various aspects of proverb scholarship, addressed as an interdisciplinary subspecialty of literature, psychology, and folklore. Mieder (German and Russian, Univ. of Vermont) synthesizes previous literature, grapples with problems of definition, analyzes the formulaic nature of proverbs, and explores their origin (often classical or biblical), evolution, and roles in popular culture. The chapters on medical proverbs and the use of proverbial propaganda in Nazi Germany are of special interest. The author's occasional digressions from his scholarly methods to champion further inquiry hinder his conclusions; there is also a slight discontinuity between the essays, possibly due to their having already been published separately. Recommended for folklore and larger literary collections.-- Janice Braun, Hoover Institution Lib., Stanford, Cal.

Library Journal

Mieder (German and folklore, U. of Vermont) traces the origin of popular proverbs, and explores their continued use in modern American society, especially for advertising and propaganda. He shows how some proverbs encapsulate traditional wisdom, some evolved from advertising slogans, and some have travelled through several cultures and languages. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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