SUSAN WHITEBOOK
Middle French Proverbs, Sentences
and Proverbial Phrases. By James Woodrow Hassell, Jr.
Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1982. Pp.
274.
This excellent and thorough collection
of proverbial material from published Middle French works
(1300-1515) is a most welcome addition to the field. Similar
in format to B. J. Whiting's Proverbs, Sentences and
Proverbial Phrases from English Writing Mainly before
1500 (Cambridge, 1968), it offers an alphabetized
listing of the proverbs, ordered according to the key word
of the lemma. The lemma (the standard form based mainly on
the texts of Leroux, Morawski, Whiting and other previous
collections) is followed by ample quotations from the body
of medieval works, arranged chronologically whenever
possible, and an excellent supplement of cross references.
These last refer to other citations in the same collection
as well as to external references of collection and
commentary.
The Middle French works cited, roughly
100 of them, range from the very well-known major writers,
such as Christine de Pisan, Guillaume de Machaut, Jean
Froissart, Jean Gerson and François Villon, to minor
works and writers like Guillaume Crétin, Guillaume de
Diguville and Guillaume Coquillart.
The problem of criteria for the
included material of course arises. Hassell presents the
six-part (with subcategories) classification of Susanne
Schmarje (Das sprichwörtliche Material in den Essais
von Montaigne [Berlin, 1973]), to which he gives
his general approval, but about which he still has some
reservations. He points out, as Schmarje did as well, that
the categories are not quite clearcut, and that many a
proverb or proverbial expression could be fitted into more
than one classification. Since the word "Sentences" appears
in the title of his work, I would have liked Hassell to
indicate what he understands this to mean. I would loosely
define it as a proverb stripped of its poetry (alliteration,
rhythm et al) to the plainest of truisms, and would call
such a sayings as "On doit aider son ami" a
sentence.
Many of the entries are extensive
enough to include surrounding material when the latter marks
the phrase as proverbial. Such identifications include the
nouns "proverbe," by far the most common, "aphorisme,"
"parler," "sentence," "dit" "commune raison," "commune
parole," parabole," "mot," as well as the phrases "on dit,"
"aucuns dient," "jíai ouy dire," and the like. Others
have specific attribution to enhance their authority:
"Escripture," "ly sages," "Nostre Seigneur par la bouche de
l'apostre," "Salomon," "Juvenal" and "mon père."
These markers are almost always attached to complete
proverbs, and when the proverbial material is a phrase, the
writer adds the grammatical units necessary to complete the
sentence.
"Compilers of proverb dictionaries
tend to be excessively inclusive," says Hassell, and this is
indeed the correct direction in which to err, even if it
means including entries such as "comme la fumée" and
"le bleu et le vert." I will certainly not quibble about
that, but I would question entries that, to my mind, present
problems both of organization and of definition. For
example, consider the collection of quotations found on
pages 117-120, nos. F. 121-123, 125, 127, 132-135; there are
eleven separate lemmae touching on the instability of
fortune. The first two entries under F127, Fortune
l'instable, are "Elle n'est point estable" and "Mais riens
n'avez dit de Fortune,/ Qui n'est n'onques ne fu
seüre,/ Mes quant les siens plus asseüre,/ Ceaus
sont qu'elle plus griefment bat/ Et qu'en bas de plus haut
abat." (This latter might have better gone under F123:
"Fortune fait monter ceuls d'em bas en haut et ceulz d'en
haut fait desmonter.") Most of the other quotations among
the eleven lemmae on this subject show such a striking
difference of expression that entry under one or the other
seems arbitrary (and must have presented agonizing
problems). When there are differences to such a degree, we
are no longer considering clichés of language, the
phrases or sentences that flow automatically, and that are
in fact "words" composed of many words in a set or nearly
set pattern. We are in the area of clichés of
thought, and, given the disparities of just this one
particular collection, we have clear evidence that, however
commonplace the thought was, it gave rise to no (or very
few) proverbs in Middle French to express it.
The full text of this
article is published in De
Proverbio - Issue 11:2000 & Issue
12:2000, an
electronic book, available from amazon.com and other leading Internet booksellers.
The objections raised concern
primarily details. They should not be understood to question
the value of this collection. Hassell's precious work of
painstaking gathering and patient sifting has resulted in a
rich and exhaustive reference work of high standards. His
dictionary will serve present and future scholars very well,
and it should certainly serve as a model for future
collections of medieval vernacular proverbs.
NOTES
Previously published in Proverbium 2 (1985), pp. 335-338.
Permission to publish this article granted by Proverbium (Editor: Prof. Wolfgang Mieder, University
of Vermont, USA).
Susan Whitebook
Department of Romance Languages
University of Vermont
Burlington, Vermont 05405
USA