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"DER MENSCH DENKT: GOTT LENKT-KEINE RED DAVON!" SPRICHWORTLICHE VERFREMDUNGEN IM WERK BERTOLT BRECHTS. Von Wolfgang Mieder. Sprichworterfor-schung 98. Bern: Peter Lang, 1998. Pp. 195.
Bertolt Brecht's propensity for the innovative use of traditional patterns of language has been a staple of Brecht scholarship for a fairly long time. While the findings of literary historians, critics, and scholars tend to regard Brecht's linguistic appropriations as merely one facet of his total oeuvre, in the present volume Wolfgang Mieder, a well-known scholar in the field of proverbial sayings, provides what must count as a systematic-albeit not entirely exhaustive-study of Sprichwortliche Verfremdungen. In three chapters, Mieder discusses Brecht's employment of "sprichwortliche Dialektik" (proverbial dialectics), "redensartliche Volkssprache" (vernacular expressions), and so-called "sagwortartiger Humor" (Wellerism humor). In a sense, Mieder continues the work of Barbara Allen Woods-to whom he pays repeated tribute.
The very title of Mieder's study draws attention to Brecht's ingenuity in imparting new meaning to what in many instances have become tiresome cliches or meaningless, automatically invoked sayings. By merely substituting a colon for a comma in the phrase "Der Mensch denkt: Gott lenkt" (man proposes, God disposes), Brecht achieved maximum effect with minimal effort in that the substitution radically altered the underlying meaning of the original proverb. Owing to the accumulation of proverbs in Mother Courage's "Song of the Grand Capitulation" (scene 4 of Mother Courage and Her Children), in which the line quoted occurs, Mieder terms the song "Brechts Sprichwortlied par excellence" (p. 47). "Der Mensch denkt: Gott lenkt" may well be the most famous instance of Brecht's verbal Verfremdung (variously translated as "estrangement" or "alienation"), by means of which he sought to motivate the spectators and readers of his plays and other writings to engage in new habits of perception and thought.
Mieder offers ample statistical evidence, which he has painstakingly accumulated by counting the frequency...