Editing Proverb (section)

===In literature===
[[File:Not all who wander are lost.png|thumb|[http://www.elvenminstrel.com/tolkien/proverbs.htm Created proverb] from [[J. R. R. Tolkien]]'s ''Lord of the Rings'' on a bumper sticker.]]

Many authors have used proverbs in their writings, for a very wide variety of literary genres: epics,<ref>Hallo, William W. "Proverbs Quoted in Epic." In Lingering over Words: Studies in Ancient Near Eastern Literature in Honor of William L. Moran, pp. 203–217. Brill, 1990.</ref><ref>Yuldybaeva, G.V. 2013. On Research of the Style of the Bashkir Folk Epic "Ural-Batyr" pp. 121–122. ''Ethnological Studies of Shamanism and Other Indigenous Spiritual Beliefs and Practices '', Vol. 15, part 2, pp. 121, 122. Moscow.</ref><ref>Tsaaior, James Tar (2010), "Webbed words: masked meanings: proverbiality and narrative/discursive strategies in D. T. Niane's Sundiata: An Epic of Mali". ''Proverbium'' 27: 319–338.</ref><ref>Adjandeh, Evelyn Aku. 2014. ''A study of Proverbs in "Things Fall Apart" and "Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali (Sundiata). MPhil thesis, University of Ghana.''.</ref> novels,<ref>Obiechina, Emmanuel. "Narrative proverbs in the African novel." Research in African Literatures 24, no. 4 (1993): 123–140.</ref><ref>Emmanuel Obiechina. Culture, tradition and society in the West African novel. Vol. 14. CUP Archive, 1975.</ref> poems,<ref>Renker, Elizabeth. 2014. "Melville and the Worlds of Civil War Poetry." ''Leviathan'' 16 (2014): 135–52.</ref> short stories.<ref>2017. Peter Unseth and Georgi Kapchits. Hemingway’s Somali proverb confirmed. ''ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews'' 30(4):253–254.</ref>

Probably the most famous user of proverbs in novels is [[J. R. R. Tolkien]] in his ''[[The Hobbit]]'' and ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' series.<ref name="Michael Stanton 1996">Michael Stanton. 1996. Advice is a dangerous gift. ''Proverbium'' 13: 331–345</ref><ref name="Trokhimenko, Olga 2003">Trokhimenko, Olga. 2003. "If You Sit on the Doorstep Long Enough, You Will Think of Something": The Function of Proverbs in J. R. R. Tolkien's Hobbit." ''[[Proverbium (journal)]]''20: 367–378.</ref><ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.elvenminstrel.com/tolkien/proverbs.htm|title=Tolkien's Proverbs in The Lord of the Rings|website=www.elvenminstrel.com}}</ref><ref>Rowe, David. 2016. ''The proverbs of Middle-Earth'', 2nd edition.</ref> [[Herman Melville]] is noted for creating proverbs in ''[[Moby-Dick]]''<ref>Hayes, Kevin. ''Melville’s Folk Roots''. Kent State University Press, 1999, p. 30.</ref> and in his poetry.<ref>Unseth, Peter. 2015. The Source of Melville’s Iroquois Proverb. ''ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews'' 28:3–4, 182–185.</ref><ref>p. 141. Renker, Elizabeth. 2014. Mellville and the Worlds of Civil War Poetry. ''Leviathan'' 16: 135–152.</ref> Also, [[C. S. Lewis]] created a dozen proverbs in ''[[The Horse and His Boy]]'',<ref name="Unseth, Peter 2011">Unseth, Peter. 2011. A culture "full of choice apophthegms and useful maxims": invented proverbs in C.S. Lewis' ''The Horse and His Boy'' ''Proverbium'' 28: 323–338.</ref> and [[Mercedes Lackey]] created dozens for her invented [[Shin'a'in]] and Tale'edras cultures;<ref>Proverbs from Velgarth – http://www.dragonlordsnet.com/danp.htm</ref> Lackey's proverbs are notable in that they are reminiscent to those of Ancient Asia – e.g. "Just because you feel certain an enemy is lurking behind every bush, it doesn't follow that you are wrong" is like to "Before telling secrets on the road, look in the bushes." These authors are notable for not only using proverbs as integral to the development of the characters and the story line, but also for creating proverbs.<ref name="Unseth, Peter 2011"/>

Among medieval literary texts, [[Geoffrey Chaucer]]'s [[Troilus and Criseyde]] plays a special role because Chaucer's usage seems to challenge the truth value of proverbs by exposing their epistemological unreliability.<ref>Richard Utz, "''Sic et Non'': Zu Funktion und Epistemologie des Sprichwortes bei Geoffrey Chaucer," ''Das Mittelalter: Perspektiven mediävistischer Forschung'' 2.2 (1997), 31–43.</ref> [[Rabelais]] used proverbs to write an entire chapter of [[Gargantua]].<ref>p. 903. Taylor, Archer. 1950. Proverbs. ''Funk and Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend'', Maria Leach ed. 902–905. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.</ref>

The patterns of using proverbs in literature can change over time. A study of "classical Chinese novels" found proverb use as frequently as one proverb every 3,500 words in the ''[[Water Margin]]'' (''Shuihu zhuan'') and one proverb every 4,000 words in ''Wen Jou-hsiang''. But modern Chinese novels have fewer proverbs by far.<ref>Eberhard, W. 1967. Some notes on the use of proverbs in Chinese novels. ''Proverbium'' no. 9: 201–208.</ref>

[[File:Hercules & Waggoner2.jpg|left|thumb|"Hercules and the Wagoner", illustration for children's book]]
Proverbs (or portions of them) have been the inspiration for titles of books: ''The Bigger they Come'' by [[Erle Stanley Gardner]], and ''Birds of a Feather'' (several books with this title), ''Devil in the Details'' (multiple books with this title). Sometimes a title alludes to a proverb, but does not actually quote much of it, such as ''The Gift Horse's Mouth'' by Robert Campbell. Some books or stories have titles that are twisted proverbs, anti-proverbs, such as ''No use dying over spilled milk'',<ref>Myers, Tamar. 1996. ''No use dying over spelled milk''. New York: Penguin Books.</ref> ''When life gives you lululemons,''<ref>Weisburger, Lauren. 2018. ''When life gives you lululemons.'' Simon & Schuster.</ref> and two books titled ''Blessed are the Cheesemakers''.<ref>Lynch, Sarah-Kate. 2004. ''Blessed are the Cheesemakers''. Grand Central Publications and Tricia Goyr & Cara Putman. 2016. ''Blessed are the Cheesemakers.''</ref> The twisted proverb of last title was also used in the [[Monty Python]] movie [[Life of Brian]], where a person mishears one of Jesus Christ's [[beatitudes]], "I think it was 'Blessed are the cheesemakers.'"

Some books and stories are built around a proverb. Some of Tolkien's books have been analyzed as having "governing proverbs" where "the action of a book turns on or fulfills a proverbial saying."<ref>p. 332. Stanton, Michael. 1996. "Advice is a dangerous gift": (Pseudo)proverbs in ''The Lord of the Rings''. ''Proverbium'' 13:331–346.</ref> Some stories have been written with a proverb overtly as an opening, such as "A stitch in time saves nine" at the beginning of "Kitty's Class Day", one of [[Louisa May Alcott]]'s ''Proverb Stories''. Other times, a proverb appears at the end of a story, summing up a moral to the story, frequently found in [[Aesop's Fables]], such as "[[God helps those who help themselves|Heaven helps those who help themselves]]" from ''Hercules and the Wagoner''.<ref>p. 19. Kent, Graeme. 1991. ''Aesop's Fables.'' Newmarket, UK: Brimax.</ref> In a novel by the Ivorian novelist [[Ahmadou Kourouma]], "proverbs are used to conclude each chapter".<ref>p. 86. Repinecz, Jonathon. 2013. ''Whose Hero? Reinventing Epic in French West African Literature''. University of California, Berkeley: PhD dissertation.</ref>

Proverbs have also been used strategically by poets.<ref>Sobieski, Janet and Wolfgang Mieder. 2005. ''"So many heads, so many wits": An anthology of English proverb poetry.'' (Supplement Series of ''Proverbium'', 18.) Burlington, VT: University of Vermont.</ref> Sometimes proverbs (or portions of them or [[anti-proverb]]s) are used for titles, such as "A bird in the bush" by [[Hilton Young, 1st Baron Kennet|Lord Kennet]] and his stepson [[Peter Scott]] and "[[The blind leading the blind]]" by Lisa Mueller. Sometimes, multiple proverbs are important parts of poems, such as [[Paul Muldoon]]'s "Symposium", which begins "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it hold its nose to the grindstone and hunt with the hounds. Every dog has a stitch in time..." In Finnish there are proverb poems written hundreds of years ago.<ref>Lauhakangas, Outi. "The Oldest Finnish Proverb Poems in Relation to the [[Matti Kuusi]] International Database od Proverbs." ''Acta Ethnographica Hungarica'' 45.3–4 (2000): 401–420.</ref> The Turkish poet Refiki wrote an entire poem by stringing proverbs together, which has been translated into English poetically yielding such verses as "Be watchful and be wary, / But seldom grant a boon; / The man who calls the piper / Will also call the tune."<ref>A. L. Macfie and F. A. Macfie. 2001. A Proverb Poem by Refiki. ''Asian Folklore Studies'' Vol. 60, Issue 1, pp. 5–19.</ref> [[Eliza Griswold]] also created a poem by stringing proverbs together, Libyan proverbs translated into English.<ref>Griswold, Eliza. 2012, Libyan Proverbs. ''Poetry'' 201.3:372–377.</ref>

Because proverbs are familiar and often pointed, they have been used by a number of hip-hop poets. This has been true not only in the USA, birthplace of hip-hop, but also in Nigeria. Since Nigeria is so multilingual, hip-hop poets there use proverbs from various languages, mixing them in as it fits their need, sometimes translating the original. For example,
<br />"They forget say ogbon ju agbaralo<br />They forget that wisdom is greater than power"<ref>p. 43. Akande, Akinmade Timothy and Adebayo
Mosobalaje. 2014. The use of proverbs in hip-hop music: The example of Yoruba proverbs in 9ices's music. ''Proverbium'' 31:35–58.</ref>

Some authors have bent and twisted proverbs, creating anti-proverbs, for a variety of literary effects. For example, in the [[Harry Potter]] novels, [[J. K. Rowling]] reshapes a standard English proverb into "It's no good crying over spilt potion" and [[Dumbledore]] advises Harry not to "count your owls before they are delivered".<ref>Heather A. Haas. 2011. The Wisdom of Wizards{{snd}}and Muggles and Squibs: Proverb Use in the World of Harry Potter. ''Journal of American Folklore'' 124(492): 38.</ref> In a slightly different use of reshaping proverbs, in the [[Aubrey–Maturin series]] of historical naval novels by [[Patrick O'Brian]], Capt. [[Jack Aubrey]] humorously mangles and mis-splices proverbs, such as "Never count the bear's skin before it is hatched" and "There's a good deal to be said for making hay while the iron is hot."<ref>Jan Harold Brunvand. 2004. "The Early Bird Is Worth Two in the Bush": Captain Jack Aubrey's Fractured Proverbs. ''What Goes Around Comes Around: The Circulation of Proverbs in Contemporary Life'', [[Kimberly J. Lau]], Peter Tokofsky, Stephen D. Winick, (eds.), pp. 152–170. Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press. [http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1032&context=usupress_pubs&sei-redir=1#search=%22What%20Goes%20Around%20Comes%20Around%3A%20Circulation%20Proverbs%20Contemporary%20Life%2C%22 digitalcommons.usu.edu]</ref> Earlier than O'Brian's Aubrey, [[Beatrice Grimshaw]] also used repeated splicings of proverbs in the mouth of an eccentric marquis to create a memorable character in ''The Sorcerer's Stone'',<ref>Unseth, Peter. 2020. Beatrice Grimshaw’s Proverb Splicer and Her Artful Use of Proverbs. ''Proverbium'' 37:341–358.</ref> such as "The proof of the pudding sweeps clean" (p.&nbsp;109) and "A stitch in time is as good as a mile" (p.&nbsp;97).<ref>Grimshaw, Beatrice. 1914. ''The Sorcerer’s Stone.'' Philadelphia: John Winston.</ref>
[[File:DreamHaven May 30 2020 storeboards.jpg|thumb|left|Proverb from Spiderman now in public use]]

Because proverbs are so much a part of the language and culture, authors have sometimes used proverbs in historical fiction effectively, but anachronistically, before the proverb was actually known. For example, the novel ''Ramage and the Rebels'', by [[Dudley Pope]] is set in approximately 1800. Captain Ramage reminds his adversary "You are supposed to know that it is dangerous to change horses in midstream" (p.&nbsp;259), with another allusion to the same proverb three pages later. However, the proverb about changing horses in midstream is reliably dated to 1864, so the proverb could not have been known or used by a character from that period.<ref>p. 49, [[Jennifer Speake]]. 2008. ''The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs'', 5th ed. Oxford University Press.</ref>

Some authors have used so many proverbs that there have been entire books written cataloging their proverb usage, such as [[Charles Dickens]],<ref>George Bryan and Wolfgang Mieder. 1997. ''The Proverbial Charles Dickens''. New York: Peter Lang</ref> [[Agatha Christie]],<ref>George B. Bryan. 1993. ''Black Sheep, Red Herrings, and Blue Murder: The Proverbial Agatha Christie''. Bern: Peter Lang</ref> [[George Bernard Shaw]],<ref>George B. Bryan and Wolfgang Mieder. 1994. ''The Proverbial Bernard Shaw: An Index to Proverbs in the Works of George Bernard Shaw''. Heinemann Educational Books.</ref> [[Miguel de Cervantes]],<ref>Mieder, Wolfgang. 2006. ''Tilting at Windmills History & Meaning of a Proverbial Allusion to Cervantes Don Quixote''. Burlington: University of Vermont. {{ISBN|978-0-9770731-3-9}}</ref><ref>Mieder, Wolfgang. 2017. ''"Stringing proverbs together: The proverbial language in Miguel Cervantes's "Don Quixote"''. (Supplement series to Provebium, 38.) Burlington: University of Vermont.</ref> and [[Friedrich Nietzsche]].<ref>Andreas Nolte, Wolfgang Mieder. 2012. "Zu meiner Hölle will ich den Weg mit guten Sprüchen pflastern". ''Friedrich Nietzsches sprichwörtliche Sprache''. Broschu.</ref>

On the non-fiction side, proverbs have also been used by authors for articles that have no connection to the study of proverbs. Some have been used as the basis for book titles, e.g. ''I Shop, Therefore I Am: Compulsive Buying and the Search for Self'' by April Lane Benson. Some proverbs been used as the basis for article titles, though often in altered form: "All our eggs in a broken basket: How the Human Terrain System is undermining sustainable military cultural competence"<ref>Connable, Ben. (2009). All our eggs in a broken basket: How the Human Terrain System is undermining sustainable military cultural competence. Military Review, March–April: 57–64.</ref> and "Should Rolling Stones Worry About Gathering Moss?",<ref>MUNISHWAR NATH GUPTA. 2017. ''Proceedings of the Indian National Science Academy'' 83 No. 4: 741–743.</ref> "Between a Rock and a Soft Place",<ref>Denig, Stephen J. Between a Rock and a Soft Place. ''Christian Higher Education'' 11.1 (2012): 44–61.</ref> and the pair "Verbs of a feather flock together"<ref>Lederer, Anne, Henry Gleitman, and Lila Gleitman. "Verbs of a feather flock together: Semantic information in the structure of maternal speech." Beyond names for things: Young children’s acquisition of verbs 277–297 (1995)</ref> and "Verbs of a feather flock together II".<ref>Gleitman, Lila R. "Verbs of a feather flock together II." Amsterdam Studies in the Theorgy and History of Linguistic Science Series 4 (2002): 209–232.</ref> Proverbs have been noted as common in subtitles of articles<ref>p. 154. ''Introduction to Paremiology. A Comprehensive Guide to Proverb Studies'' edited by Hrisztalina Hrisztova-Gotthardt and Melita Aleksa Varga. Berlin: De Gruyter Open. Online: [http://www.degruyter.com/viewbooktoc/product/449649 Open Access version].</ref> such as "Discontinued intergenerational transmission of Czech in Texas: 'Hindsight is better than foresight'."<ref>Cope, Lida. 2006. "Discontinued intergenerational transmission of Czech in Texas: 'Hindsight is better than foresight'." ''Southern Journal of Linguistics'' 30(2):1–49.</ref> Also, the reverse is found with a proverb (complete or partial) as the title, then an explanatory subtitle, "To Change or Not to Change Horses: The World War II Elections".<ref>Norpoth, Helmut. 2012. "To Change or Not to Change Horses: The World War II Elections." ''Presidential Studies Quarterly'' Volume 42, Issue 2: 324–342.</ref> Many authors have cited proverbs as epigrams at the beginning of their articles, e.g. "'If you want to dismantle a hedge, remove one thorn at a time' Somali proverb" in an article on peacemaking in Somalia.<ref>Ismail I. Ahmed and Reginald H. Green. 1999. The heritage of war and state collapse in Somalia and Somaliland. ''Third World Quarterly'' 20.1:113–127.</ref> An article about research among the [[Māori people|Māori]] used a Māori proverb as a title, then began the article with the Māori form of the proverb as an epigram "Set the overgrown bush alight and the new flax shoots will spring up", followed by three paragraphs about how the proverb served as a metaphor for the research and the present context.<ref>Pia Pohatu and Tui Aroha Warmenhoven. 2007. Set the overgrowth alight and the new shoots will spring forth: New directions in community based research. ''AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Scholarship'', Special supplement, 109–127.</ref> A British proverb has even been used as the title for a doctoral dissertation: ''Where there is muck there is brass''.<ref>Abramson, Tony. 2016. ''Where there’s muck there’s brass! Coinage in the Northumbrian landscape and economy, c.575-c.867.'' Leeds University: Doctoral dissertation.</ref> Proverbs have also been used as a framework for an article.<ref>Blitt, Robert C. "Babushka Said Two Things-It Will Either Rain or Snow; It Either Will or Will Not: An Analysis of the Provisions and Human Rights Implications of Russia's New Law on Non-Governmental Organizations as Told through Eleven Russian Proverbs." Geo. Wash. Int'l L. Rev. 40 (2008): 1–86.</ref>