„Early to Bed / Früh zu Bett“ Parömiographische Vermittlung zwischen Benjamin Franklin und K. F. W. Wander / “Early to Bed / Früh zu Bett”: Paremiographical Exchange Between Benjamin Franklin and K. F. W. Wander
DOI: 10.23817/lingtreff.19-14 (published online: 2021-06-17)
pp. 219–263
Keywords: Benjamin Franklin, paremiography, proverb, translation, origin, K. F. W. Wander
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”.
Texts published in the ‘Linguistische Treffen in Wrocław’ are available in the Open Access on the basis of the CC BY-SA license.
