The Perception of Proverbiality

Many scholars from ancient times to the modern age have attempted to solve the riddle of properly defining a proverb. In fact, Archer Taylor's classical study on The Proverb (Cambridge/ Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1931; rpt. 1962 and 1985) can be understood as a major work towards the definition of proverbs. The same is basically true for Neal R. Norrick's book on How Proverbs Mean: Semantic Studies in English Proverbs (Amsterdam: Mouton, 1985). There are also valuable shorter essays on this important topic, notably Bartlett Jere Whiting, The Nature of the Proverb, Harvard Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature, 14 (1932), 273-307; Alan Dundes, On the Structure of the Proverb, Proverbium, no. 25 (1975), 961-973; and Wolfgang Mieder, General Thoughts on the Nature of the Proverb, Revista de etnografie sifolclor, 36 (1991), 151-164.

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