“GRATITUDE IS THE CURSE OF THE REPUBLICS” THE PROVERBS AND PROVERBIAL EXPRESSIONS OF WHARTON JACKSON GREEN
Article Sidebar
268-296
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Main Article Content
Аннотация
This essay explores proverbial language use of Wharton Jackson Green (1831–1910), revealing how he used it in navigating the various roles he played as a soldier, civilian, and politician. Simultaneously, it illustrates the complexities of life during the Reconstruction (1865–1877) and Victorian eras (1837–1901), highlighting the extent to which Green’s family history is connected to National history. Drawing from Wolfgang Mieder’s scholarship on the political uses of proverbs, it demonstrates that even if aspects of Green’s writing reflect the racist ideology prevalent during Reconstruction, such as “the lost cause,” it is only by examining such instances carefully, that one may develop an understanding of the complex evolution of American culture. Green’s limited corpus of writings archived at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill includes his autobiography Recollections and Reflections: An Auto of Half a Century and More (1906), an editorial commemorating his father, Thomas Jefferson Green (1802–1863), written for the North Carolina University Magazine (1892), and several Senate speeches. These illustrate that Green had a range of uses for proverbial language including engaging in political discourse, conveying life lessons, and coping with the mental and emotional traumas associated with fighting in the Civil War (1861–1865).
Article Details
Библиографические ссылки
Bellamy, Gladys Carmen. “Mark Twain’s Indebtedness to John Phoenix.” American Literature. vol. 13, 1941, pp. 29–43.
Block, Susan Taylor. “Catching up With the Joneses.” Wrightsville Beach Magazine, 29 January 2007, https://wrightsvillebeachmagazine.com/catching-up-with-the-joneses/, retrieved on 9 June 2024.
Bryan, B. George, and Wolfgang Mieder, editors. A Dictionary of Anglo-American Proverbs &
Proverbial Phrases: Found in Literary Sources of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. New York: Peter Lang, 2005.
Caron, James E. “Why ‘Literary Comedians’ Mislabels Two Comic Writers, George Derby (‘John Phoenix’) and Sam Clemens (‘Mark Twain’).” Studies in American Humor, vol. 3, no. 22, 2010, pp. 43–67.
Doyle, Charles Clay, Wolfgang Mieder, and Fred R. Shapiro, editors. The Dictionary of Modern Proverbs. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012.
Green, Wharton J., “Repeal of Certain Internal Taxes: Interstate Commerce, Speech of Honorable Wharton J. Green of North Carolina in the House of Representatives”. Washington: UNC Archives & Records, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1885a.
Green, Wharton J., “General Grant: ‘Gratitude is the Curse of the Republics,’ Speech of Honorable Wharton J. Green of North Carolina in the House of Representatives.” Washington: UNC Archives & Records, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1885b.
Green, Wharton J., “Contested Election Case—Hurd vs. Romeis., Speech of Honorable Wharton J. Green of North Carolina in the House of Representatives.” Washington: UNC Archives & Records, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1886.
Green, Wharton J., “General Thomas J. Green, of Warren.” North Carolina University Magazine, vol.11, no. 5, 1892, pp. 217–28.
Green, Wharton J., Recollections and Reflections: An Auto of Half a Century and More. Raleigh: Edwards & Broughton Printing Company, 1906.
Longacre, Edward G. A Gentleman and A Soldier: A Biography of Wade Hampton III, Lincoln: University Nebraska Press, 2003.
Mieder, Wolfgang. Proverbs Are Never Out of Season: Popular Wisdom in the Modern Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Mieder, Wolfgang. The Politics of Proverbs: Traditional Wisdom to Proverbial Stereotypes. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1997.
Mieder, Wolfgang. “Call A Spade A Spade”: From Classical Phrase to Racial Slur: A Case Study. New York: Peter Lang, 2002.
Mieder, Wolfgang. Proverbs: A Handbook. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2004.
Mieder, Wolfgang. Behold the Proverbs of a People: Proverbial Wisdom in Culture, Literature, and Politics. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2014.
Mieder, Wolfgang. The Worldview of Modern American Proverbs. New York: Peter Lang, 2020.
Mieder, Wolfgang, editor. Dictionary of Authentic American Proverbs. New York: Berghahn Books, 2021.
Phoenix, John. PhŒnixiana; or Sketches and Burlesques. New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1856.
Smith, Claiborne T., “Walters, Sarah (Sadie) Wharton Green Jones.” NCPEDIA, 1996, https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/walters-sarah-sadie, retrieved on 9 June 2024.
Speake, Jennifer, editor. Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs. 5th edition., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Speake, Jennifer, editor. Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs. 6th edition., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
Summerville, Raymond M. Proverb Masters: Shaping the Civil Rights Movement. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2024.
Whiting, Bartlett Jere. Modern Proverbs and Proverbial Sayings. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989.