African-American Proverbs in Context (review)

Sw. Anand Prahlad's African-American Proverbs in Context builds on the best work done so far in the study of proverbs, in general, and of African American proverbs, specifically. More importantly, this study provides a well-crafted approach that I think will inspire further work. Combined with an overview of pertinent scholarship, the book offers comprehensive theory balanced with fieldwork. Prahlad provides a structure for a contextual analysis of proverbs that will aid many in this field of study.

The opening chapter reviews past African American proverb studies, then introduces a blueprint for a more context-sensitive investigation of proverb use and function. Divided into two parts, the body of the book demonstrates the flexibility and effectiveness of Prahlad's theories. In the first section, he applies them to WPA records of interviews with ex-slaves, then to blues lyrics. The second section is devoted to analysis of materials gleaned from either Prahlad's fieldwork or the Folklore Archives at the University of California, Berkeley.

Some of Prahlad's theoretical suggestions may strike readers as new, but he grounds them thoroughly in the context of past studies. Following the direction of recent work in proverb studies, he focuses on the "creativity of proverbial usage and . . . the opinion that proverbs should be considered creative performances rather than merely quotations" (p.5). He also eschews as unproductive the approach that treats proverbs as indices to national character. This approach, he finds, is based on "a priori notions and stereotypes rather than on any scientific or ethnographic investigation of cultures and behaviors" (p. 6) and underestimates the often paradoxical, contradictory, and iconoclastic nature of proverbs.

Prahlad proposes a four-part model with which to discuss all the dimensions of proverb meaning, rather than treating them separately as others have done. The first three dimensions are (1) the "grammatical" or literal level; (2) the "situational" level, which is derived from a term used by Kirshenblatt-Gimblett and "designates the intent of the speaker in the particular context in which the proverb is spoken" (p. 24); and (3) "the group, or social, level," which involves shared social knowledge of the general meaning of a proverb. The fourth or "symbolic" level extends beyond all the other dimensions, encompassing the personal and psychological importance of the proverbial item. Prahlad notes that this dimension has received little attention from proverb scholars, primarily because ethnographic and contextual work is essential to it.

An example of the symbolic level of analysis is applied to the proverb, "An idle mind is the devil's workshop." For a woman who became pregnant before marriage, and heard it from her mother at the time, this proverb "might involve feelings of shame, fear, or abandonment" (p. 28). Another woman who remembers the proverb spoken laughingly by her mother "about a parent down the street," however, may recall a symbolic meaning dealing with "feelings of closeness and bonding," as well as a sense of being in the "in-group" (p.28).

Prahlad notes that the WPA ex-slave interviews to which he applies his analysis necessarily lack the data for discussing this symbolic level of proverb meaning, since the informants are no longer available for questioning. In spite of this, "a knowledge of the other levels can assist in determining symbolic meanings when we encounter the same items later on in our study" (p. 44). While Prahlad considers it may be possible to compare instances and thereby ascertain the symbolic level of meaning, with these WPA transcripts, he mostly confines himself to the grammatical, situational, and social levels of analysis. Presumably, he has left the examination of the symbolic level of the ex-slave texts for some other project that could encompass a greater number of proverb texts than this introductory volume.

I found the next section, "Proverbs in Blues Lyrics," not quite as persuasive a demonstration as the first and last two segments, as it contains even less data on those listening to the proverbs. However, I was...