Smart Marie De France Knew the Ways of this World – Medieval Advice Literature (Fables) and Social Criticism in its Relevance for us Today

Abstract

Since antiquity, a huge body of short texts has been produced in which deep wisdom of timeless value has been formulated.The succinct, poignant formulation of an idea has commonly achieved its purpose very effectively in many different life situations, and this in all cultures.Those texts, whether proverbs, aphorisms, epigrams, riddles, memorial verses, and the like are still with us today, but in recent years the interest in and familiarity with them seems to have faded, at least in the public.Only a few decades ago, it was very normal for students or other individuals to have memorized many of such short statements and to know how to apply them to their own lives.Many of them were regarded so highly that they populated the back pages of ordinary kitchen calendars and other publications for easy and public consumption.In foreign language classes, it was standard practice to work with some of those short texts, but today they often seem to be too conservative, naive, meaningless, and hence to be virtually irrelevant because of their putatively overly traditional, perhaps outdated values. 1 In fact, they seem to be belittled today and hardly enjoy the respect they really deserve.Post-modern audiences appear fairly ignorant or even negatively inclined regarding the didactic messages contained in such texts.The reasons for such a disinterest or even explicit rejection of those short verbal messages containing fundamental and timeless lessons are many, but they are mostly indefinite and emotional, maybe because those spiffy statements sound too old-fashioned, too conservative, too trite, or even irrelevant for the modern, technology-driven world.However, considering that all proverbs, for instance, address universal truths pertaining to ethics, morality, and character, nothing should prevent us from studying them carefully, even today. 2Throughout the centuries, scholars have collected vast volumes of proverbs and handed them on to posterity.Research continues the investigation of those genres, a research field called paremiology, but it might be questionable whether fables, for instance, which are closely related, really continue to enjoy the status and respect as in previous centuries. 3e simple example that might explain where the tensions rest, would be the German proverb, -Morgenstund hat Gold im Mund‖ (The morning hour has gold in its mouth).The content is clear and not hard to understand; the early riser will get the work done well and quickly (in the Anglophone world: The early bird catches the worm).This pertains, especially, to the world of farmers or gardeners, but the current younger generations seem less and less interested in the field of agriculture and rather pursue an urban lifestyle.The entire culture of drinking coffee signals clearly that getting up early in the morning is considered as uncomfortable and unpleasant; people need their caffeine to get into gear.However, in the professional world, including that of farmers, work needs to be done, and the earlier one begins with it, the better, which has nothing to do with conservatism or old fashions.Hence, the proverb continues to address elegantly the general truth about good work ethics.Nevertheless, the proverb is curiously associated with folk culture, and thus tends to be relegated to the rural population, whereas urbanite intellectuals might prefer the aphorism or the epigram, if any of such didactic statements. 4May this be as it is, we can summarize and generalize that irrespective of the modern-day evaluations and low recognition of these short and sharply formulated verses or

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