The German proverb “Es ist dafür gesorgt, daß die Bäume nicht in den Himmel wachsen“ with its shortened variant „Die Bäume wachsen nicht in den Himmel“ has been transmitted since the early sixteenth century. Its written documentation begins 1526 with Martin Luther, and it appears since 1590 in numerous variants in proverb collections. Goethe quoted it in his autobiography, and it is present in the works of Heinrich Heine, Joseph von Eichendorff, Georg Herwegh, Gottfried Keller, Theodor Fontane, Wilhelm Raabe, Hermann Hesse, Alfred Andersch, and others. Max Weber and Rosa Luxemburg made socio-political use of it, and that is also true for Winston S. Churchill, who played a part in distributing it in English translation as „Care is taken that trees don’t grow to the sky“ and „Trees don’t grow to the sky“. Joseph Goebbels quotes it repeatedly as a propagandistic leitmotif, and it also plays a role in political contexts by chancellors Conrad Adenauer, Willy Brandt, and Helmut Schmidt. Especially aphoristic writers as Dietmar Beetz, Erwin Chargaff, Peter Maiwald, Felix Renner, and Gerhard Uhlenbruck have dealt with it critically by changing it into anti-proverbs. By way of many contextualized references it is shown how the proverb developed during five centuries and how it is marked to this day by its polysituativity, polyfunctionality, and polysemanticity.
The well-known Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) published his significant essay “The Way to Wealth” in 1758. It became known worldwide in numerous editions and translations and appeared for the first time in German as “Der Weg zum Reichtum” in 1794. The 93 proverbs contained in it are the basis of the so-called Puritan work ethic in America. Some of the proverbs are texts that were current in English and also in other languages before Franklin. Among them are however also 17 proverbs that were invented by Franklin. This article investigates how six translators have rendered the proverbs into German (see the comparative catalogue) and how Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Wander included these texts with or without source references in his five-volume “Deutsches Sprichwörter-Lexikon”.
Alexander Eilers (born 1976) has not only made a name for himself as an aphoristic writer of several vo- lumes but has also assisted younger aphoristic authors whose aphorisms he has edited. With a doctorate in English language and literature at the University of Gießen he has occupied himself with the genre of aphorisms and written several meta-aphorisms. Repeatedly his texts that start with an individual word that in turn is defined by the addition of a proverbial expression. Other aphorisms begin with an expression that is expanded by a short commentary. Again and again expressions are questioned which at times leads to innovative statements by the mere substitution of a letter or word. Not only classical, biblical, and folkloric expressions appear, but Eilers also exhibits an extensive repertoire of quotations and proverbs. This traditional language material is manipulated and at times leads to expressive anti- proverbs. 386 texts of the 2142 aphorisms or 18% start from such formulaic expressions. They show that Eilers occupies himself intensively with proverbial language that he changes linguistically and thematically to insightful statements about the modern world.
The highly expressive and metaphorical language of Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophical and literary works has been studied in numerous books and articles, but it is surprising that hardly anything has been said about his obvious inclination to use proverbs and proverbial expressions throughout his voluminous writings. Nietzsche himself was very well aware of his phraseological style that includes proverbs, proverbial expressions, proverbial comparisons, twin formulas, and also literary quotations. His well-known book Jenseits von Gut und Böse (1886, Beyond Good and Evil) is definitely no exception when it comes to the phraseological language of its aphorisms, fragments, and other short prose texts. When Nietzsche cites proverbs, he almost always varies them in such a way that his newly created anti-proverbs refl ect his search for a new value system diff erent from traditional moral codes. He clearly delights in creating blasphemous anti-proverbs from well-known Biblical proverbs. But he does the same with traditional folk proverbs, arguing that they too contain antiquated moral values. Some of these parodied, manipulated or alienated proverbs are also informed by Nietzsche’s dislike for moral didacticism, his own anti-feminism, and his desire to shock his readers into escaping from narrowly understood wisdom. Of course, Nietzsche uses also numerous proverbial phrases and idioms in order to add rhetorical strength to his arguments, relying heavily on employing such phraseological units as innovatively and at times shockingly as possible. Many contextualized examples will illustrate these points, showing that Nietzsche was indeed a masterful craftsman of employing proverbial language.
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