Synopses & Reviews
Review
“
The Wisdom of Many [includes] general overviews, definitions, discussions of structure and function, examples of proverbs in literary contexts, detailed investigation of individual proverbs, examinations of the use of proverbs in psychological testing, considerations of the value of proverbs in identifying national character, and essays on the influence and use of proverbs in modern mass media. In its variety this group of articles is as broad-ranging as any compilation yet made and includes material folklorists usually slight in their considerations of proverb literature.”—W. K. McNeil,
Journal of American FolkloreReview
“Newcomers will find here a wide-ranging and stimulating selection of essays representing the varied approaches that characterize modern proverb scholarship, while readers with a prior background in this area should welcome this convenient ‘state of the art’ assemblage of widely scattered studies, some well known and many less so, complete with their original notes and bibliographies.”—Shirley L. Arora,
Western Folklore Synopsis
Olga Matich suggests that same-sex desires underlaid Russian modernists utopian proposal of abolishing the traditional procreative family in favor of erotically induced abstinence. She focuses on the later works of Tolstoy, Vladimir Solov'ev, Zinaida Gippius, Alexander Blok, and Vasilii Rozanov.
Synopsis
The Wisdom of Many explores research on proverbs of many cultures. More than twenty essays written by scholars of such diverse disciplines as folklore, literature, psychology, linguistics, and anthropology illustrate the significance of traditional proverbs and trace variations of proverbs over time, drawing on African, Chinese, Spanish, Finnish, Irish, and Yiddish examples.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 323-330). Includes bibliographical references.
About the Author
Wolfgang Mieder is professor of German and folklore and chair of the Department of German and Russian at the University of Vermont. Author of more than sixty books on folklore and proverbs, including
Proverbs Are Never Out of Season and
Howl Like a Wolf: Animal Proverbs, Mieder is co-editor of
A Dictionary of American Proverbs and
A Dictionary of Wellerisms. Alan Dundes is professor of folklore and anthropology at the University of California–Berkeley. His books available from the University of Wisconsin Press include
Parsing through Customs: Essays by a Freudian Folklorist and several folklore casebooks:
The Cockfight, The Evil Eye, The Blood Libel Legend, Cinderella, and
Little Red Riding Hood.