Proverbs constitute a rich archive of historical, cultural, and
linguistic significance that affect genres and linguistics codes. They
circulate through writers, texts, and communities in a process that
ultimately results in modifications in their structure and meanings.
Hence, context plays a crucial role in defining proverbs as well as in
determining their interpretation. Vincenzo Brusantino's Le cento
novella (1554), John Florio's Firste Fruites (1578) and Second
Frutes (1591), and Pompeo Sarnelli's Posilecheata (1684) offer clear
representations of how traditional wisdom and communal knowledge reflect
the authors' personal perspectives on society, culture, and literature.
The analysis of the three authors' proverbs through comparisons with
classical, medieval, and early modern collections of maxims and
sententiae provides insights on the fluidity of such expressions, and
illustrates the tight relationship between proverbs and sociocultural
factors. Brusantino's proverbs introduce ethical interpretations to the
one hundred novellas of Boccaccio's The Decameron, which he rewrites
in octaves of hendecasyllables. His text appeals to Counter-Reformation
society and its demand for a comprehensible and immediately applicable
morality. In Florio's two bilingual manuals, proverbs fulfill a need for
language education in Elizabethan England through authentic and
communicative instruction. Florio manipulates the proverbs' vocabulary
and syntax to fit the context of his dialogues, best demonstrating the
value of learning Italian in a foreign country. Sarnelli's proverbs
exemplify the inherent creative and expressive potentialities of the
Neapolitan dialect vis-à-vis languages with a more robust literary
tradition. As moral maxims, ironic assessments, or witty insertions,
these proverbs characterize the Neapolitan community in which the fables
take place.
