Wisdom poetry

Literary scholars have identified at least two historical types of poetry as wisdom poetry. The first kind of wisdom poetry was written in ancient Mesopotamia, including the Sumerian Hymn to Enlil, the All-Beneficent.^[1] Scholars of medieval literature have also termed some poems "wisdom poetry".

Origins

Sigmund Mowinckel argues that wisdom poetry, encapsulated mainly in sayings or proverbs, was widespread in antiquity. Suggesting that wisdom poems were written in Egypt, Babylonia, and Canaan, Mowinckel identifies the influence of wisdom poetry on the Hebrew psalms.^[2] Hermann Gunkel also identifies wisdom poetry (Weisheitsdichtung) as a psalmic genre.^[3]

Dan Pagis identifies Samuel ibn Naghrillah as an originator of the wisdom poetry genre.^[4]

Germanic cultures

Wisdom poems were a significant aspect of Anglo-Saxon literary culture, written in the Old English language. Scholar Paul Battles identifies wisdom poetry as one of three genres of Anglo-Saxon poetry; the others are elegy and epic.^[5] A 1998 anthology of Old English poems describes the genre as a "miscellaneous collection of works whose teaching is partly Christian, partly secular".^[6] The editors group riddles, "succinct formulations of traditional wisdom", and "metrical charms" under the wisdom poetry heading.^[6]

Carolyne Larrington, whose study A Store of Common Sense compares Old English and Old Icelandic (or Old Norse) wisdom poetry, defines a wisdom poem as one that "exists primarily to impart a body of information about the condition of the world ... or about the past".^[7] She describes Maxims I, or Exeter Maxims,^[8] as an example of Old English wisdom poetry, and Vafþrúðnismál and Grímnismál as Norse examples.^[7]

References

1. Bullock, C. Hassell (2007). An Introduction to the Old Testament Poetic Books. Moody Publishers. ISBN 9781575674506.
2. Mowinckel 1962, p. 105.
3. Johnson, A. R. (1961). "The Psalms". In Rowley, H. H. (ed.). The Old Testament and Modern Study: A Generation of Discovery and Research. Oxford University Press. p. 177. OCLC 1245625555.
4. Pagis 1991, pp. 15–16.
5. Battles, Paul (2014). "Toward a Theory of Old English Poetic Genres: Epic, Elegy, Wisdom Poetry, and the "Traditional Opening"". Studies in Philology. 111 (1): 1–33. ISSN 0039-3738. JSTOR 24391997.
6. Olsen & Raffel 1998, p. 107.
7. Larrington 1993, p. 1.
8. O'Camb, Brian (June 2009). "Bishop Æthelwold and the Shaping of the Old English Exeter Maxims". English Studies. 90 (3): 253–273. doi:10.1080/00138380902796714. ISSN 0013-838X. S2CID 162184922.

Sources

• Larrington, Carolyne (1993). A Store of Common Sense: Gnomic Theme and Style in Old Icelandic and Old English Wisdom Poetry. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-811982-8. OCLC 25871539.
• Mowinckel, Sigmund (1962). The Psalms in Israel's Worship. Vol. 1. Translated by Ap-Thomas, D. R. Abingdon Press. ISBN 0-687-34735-1. OCLC 6027773.
• Olsen, Alexandra Hennessey; Raffel, Burton, eds. (1998). Poems and Prose from the Old English. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-13041-6. OCLC 567922025.
• Pagis, Dan (1991). Hebrew Poetry of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-06547-6. OCLC 22809128.

Further reading

• Schorn, Brittany Erin (10 July 2017). Speaker and Authority in Old Norse Wisdom Poetry. De Gruyter. doi:10.1515/9783110549799. ISBN 978-3-11-054979-9.