{"id":138792,"date":"2019-08-16T11:00:18","date_gmt":"2019-08-16T15:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=138792"},"modified":"2019-08-16T11:21:02","modified_gmt":"2019-08-16T15:21:02","slug":"on-proverbs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/08\/16\/on-proverbs\/","title":{"rendered":"On Proverbs"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_138804\" style=\"width: 1034px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/benjaminbnf.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-138804\" class=\"wp-image-138804 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/benjaminbnf.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"650\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/benjaminbnf.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/benjaminbnf-300x190.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/benjaminbnf-768x488.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-138804\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Walter Benjamin\u2019s membership card from the Biblioth\u00e8que nationale de France. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Take, as a foundation, the image of women carrying full, heavy vessels on their heads without using their hands.<\/p>\n<p>The rhythm in which they do this is what the proverb demonstrates.<\/p>\n<p>A <em>noli me tangere <\/em>of experience speaks from the proverb.<\/p>\n<p>And through this, the proverb declares its ability to transform experience into tradition. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Proverbs cannot be applied to a specific situation. Rather, they have a kind of magical character: they transform the situation. An individual hardly has the capacity to cleanse all the traces of personal experiences from the lessons learned in life. But proverbs can do this by appropriating those lessons.<\/p>\n<p>Proverbs turn knowledge gained from experience into a wave in the endless, breathing chain of life lessons that come to us from eternity.<\/p>\n<p>Jean Paulhan: <em>Exp\u00e9rience du proverbe<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><em>\u2014Translated from the German by Tess Lewis<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Walter Benjamin (1892\u20131940) was a philosopher, cultural critic, and essayist. Associated with the Frankfurt School, Benjamin influenced many of his contemporaries, including Bertolt Brecht, Gershom Scholem, and Theodor Adorno. Benjamin\u2019s best-known essays include \u201cThe Task of the Translator,\u201d \u201cThe Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,\u201d and \u201cTheses on the Philosophy of History.\u201d In 1940, he died by suicide in Portbou, on the French\u2013Spanish border, when his attempt to escape Nazi forces was thwarted.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Tess Lewis has translated works from the French and German, including books by Peter Handke, Anselm Kiefer, Philippe Jaccottet, and Christine Angot<\/em><em>. Her awards include the 2017\u00a0<small>PEN<\/small>\u00a0Translation Prize and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She serves as the cochair of the\u00a0<small>PEN<\/small>\u00a0Translation Committee and is an advisory editor for\u00a0<\/em>The Hudson Review<em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>From\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nyrb.com\/products\/the-storyteller-essays?variant=9273236586548\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Storyteller Essays<\/a><em>,<\/em><em>\u00a0by Walter Benjamin, translated by Tess Lewis, published by New York Review Books. Translation copyright \u00a9 2019 by Tess Lewis.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just one week after scorning those who choose to eat while reading novels, Walter Benjamin returns to argue the magic of proverbs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":773,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[419],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-138792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-culture"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>On Proverbs by Walter Benjamin<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Just one week after scorning those who choose to eat while reading novels, Walter Benjamin returns to argue the magic of proverbs.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/08\/16\/on-proverbs\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"On Proverbs by Walter Benjamin\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"August 16, 2019 \u2013 Just one week after scorning those who choose to eat while reading novels, Walter Benjamin returns to argue the magic of proverbs.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/08\/16\/on-proverbs\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-08-16T15:00:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-08-16T15:21:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/benjaminbnf.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"650\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Walter Benjamin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Walter Benjamin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/08\/16\/on-proverbs\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/08\/16\/on-proverbs\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Walter Benjamin\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/7829387da07c9918c964d688718452b8\"},\"headline\":\"On Proverbs\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-08-16T15:00:18+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-08-16T15:21:02+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/08\/16\/on-proverbs\/\"},\"wordCount\":316,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/08\/16\/on-proverbs\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/benjaminbnf.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Arts &amp; 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