Word-Play: The Roles of Proverbs in Medieval Vernacular Texts
Sponsoring Organization(s)
Dept. of English, Princeton Univ.
Organizer Name
Sarah M. Anderson
Organizer Affiliation
Princeton Univ.
Presider Name
Sarah M. Anderson
Paper Title 1
"Ryght Nought": Playing with Nothing in Proverbial Poetry
Presenter 1 Name
Lisa H. Cooper
Presenter 1 Affiliation
Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison
Paper Title 2
Proverbs for the People: Audience Expectations and the Allure of Proverbs in the Histoire de Guillaume le maréchal
Presenter 2 Name
Walter Scott
Presenter 2 Affiliation
Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison
Paper Title 3
þæt ungerydelice 7 þæt hlude geflit þæs folces: Sententious Sparring in Ecclesiastes and Solomon and Saturn II
Presenter 3 Name
Karl A. E. Persson
Presenter 3 Affiliation
Univ. of British Columbia
Paper Title 4
Respondent
Presenter 4 Name
Susan E. Deskis
Presenter 4 Affiliation
Northern Illinois Univ.
Start Date
11-5-2014 10:30 AM
Session Location
Schneider 1345
Description
For all of the profusion of the polysemous proverb in medieval texts, there are some rather spacious gaps in the study of them. A survey of proverb research in medieval vernacular traditions shows that, though new ground has been broken, we nevertheless have not penetrated some of the oft-framed questions concerning the proverb. For instance, it is still easier to gesture toward an abstracted collective, the “medieval proverb tradition”, than it is to analyze that collective for specific types of proverbs or datable examples of them or to decide upon what features of the proverb other than grammatical markers point to its proverbialness. Although proverbs, generally, are understood as somehow foundational and crucial to human expression, there is still very little agreement about the formal criteria that define a passage as proverbial. The very slipperiness of the proverb’s definition, which even eminent paremiologists like Blanche Colton Williams and Archer Taylor have assented to, itself needs to be probed. What are the features of the proverb that make defining its genre so difficult? Is it the problem of that treacherous word “traditional”? Or that of reading the proverbial in dead languages in which native competency can no longer be directly queried? What makes a proverb genuine? What does the rarity or – alternatively – the prolixity of a proverb say about it or its context? Ought not the juncture between oral and written be considered yet again in view of the proverb’s functions and performance? It is such questions that we hope to frame and discuss in this session of papers.
Sarah M. Anderson
Word-Play: The Roles of Proverbs in Medieval Vernacular Texts
Schneider 1345
For all of the profusion of the polysemous proverb in medieval texts, there are some rather spacious gaps in the study of them. A survey of proverb research in medieval vernacular traditions shows that, though new ground has been broken, we nevertheless have not penetrated some of the oft-framed questions concerning the proverb. For instance, it is still easier to gesture toward an abstracted collective, the “medieval proverb tradition”, than it is to analyze that collective for specific types of proverbs or datable examples of them or to decide upon what features of the proverb other than grammatical markers point to its proverbialness. Although proverbs, generally, are understood as somehow foundational and crucial to human expression, there is still very little agreement about the formal criteria that define a passage as proverbial. The very slipperiness of the proverb’s definition, which even eminent paremiologists like Blanche Colton Williams and Archer Taylor have assented to, itself needs to be probed. What are the features of the proverb that make defining its genre so difficult? Is it the problem of that treacherous word “traditional”? Or that of reading the proverbial in dead languages in which native competency can no longer be directly queried? What makes a proverb genuine? What does the rarity or – alternatively – the prolixity of a proverb say about it or its context? Ought not the juncture between oral and written be considered yet again in view of the proverb’s functions and performance? It is such questions that we hope to frame and discuss in this session of papers.
Sarah M. Anderson