Proverbs : a handbook

Online version:

1. Definition and classification. Definition attempts

Proverb markers and meanings

Origin and dissemination of proverbs

Traditional forms related to the proverb

The international type system of proverbs

Types of international proverb collections

Major Anglo-American proverb collections

Various specialized proverb collections

Selected bibliography

2. Examples and texts. "Big fish eat little fish" : a classical proverb about human nature

"First come, first served" : a medieval legal proverb from the millers

"The apple doesn't fall far from the tree" : a proverb's way from Germany to America

"The only good Indian is a dead Indian" : a slanderous proverbial stereotype

"Good fences make good neighbors" : an ambiguous proverb of relationships

"A picture is worth a thousand words" : an advertising slogan turned American proverb

Proverbs from different cultures and languages

Authentic American proverbs

Regional American proverbs

Native American proverbs

African American proverbs

Selected bibliography

3. Scholarship and approaches. Proverb journals, essay volumes, and bibliographies

Proverb collections and future paremiography

Comprehensive overviews of paremiology

Empiricism and paremiological minima

Linguistic and semiotic considerations

Performance (speech acts) in social contexts

Issues of culture, folklore, and history

Politics, stereotypes, and worldview

Sociology, psychology, and psychiatry

Use in folk narratives and literature

Religion and wisdom literature

Pedagogy and language teaching

Iconography : proverbs as art

Mass media and popular culture

Selected bibliography

4. Contexts. "A man of fashion never has recourse to proverbs" : Lord Chesterfield's tilting at proverbial windmills

"Early to bed and early to rise" : from proverb to Benjamin Franklin and back

"Behind the cloud the sun is shining" : Abraham Lincoln's proverbial fight against slavery

"Conventional phrases are a sort of fireworks" : Charles Dickens's proverbial language

"Make hell while the sun shines" : proverbial war rhetoric of Winston S. Churchill

"Man is a wolf to man" : proverbial dialectics in Bertolt Brecht

Benjamin Franklin's "The way to wealth"

Proverb poems and popular songs

Proverbs in caricatures, cartoons, and comics

Proverbs and the world of advertising

Proverbs as headlines and slogans

Bibliography. Bibliographies

Proverb journals

Major proverb studies

Multilingual proverb collections

Bilingual proverb collections

Anglo-American proverb collections

Regional and thematic proverb collections