Proverbs and Structure in Maxims I.A

This article addresses both the sources and the structure of the Old English poem Maxims I.A. The proverbial status of a statement in the poem can be determined not only by analyzing its syntactic form, but by locating proverbial analogues to it. Eleven of the sententiae of Maxims I.A can thus be shown to be drawn from a cultural pool of existing proverbs in Latin and the vernacular. Many of the non-proverbial sentences in Maxims I.A are nonetheless gnomic in form. These gnomes tend to appear in clusters, by which the instructional discourse type of the poem is reinforced. They also provide transitions between proverbial and non-proverbial discourse in the poem. This transitional function plays an important role in the compositional process for the gnomic poet.