Concept

Wisdom literature

Overview

Wisdom literature is a genre of literature common in the ancient Near East. It consists of statements by sages and the wise that offer teachings about divinity and virtue. Although this genre uses techniques of traditional oral storytelling, it was disseminated in written form.

The earliest known wisdom literature dates back to the middle of the 3rd millennium BC, originating from ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt. These regions continued to produce wisdom literature over the subsequent two and a half millennia. Wisdom literature from Greek, Chinese, and Indian cultures started appearing around the middle of the 1st millennium BC. In the 1st millennium AD, Egyptian-Greek wisdom literature emerged, some elements of which were later incorporated into Islamic thought.

Much of wisdom literature can be broadly categorized into two types – conservative "positive wisdom" and critical "negative wisdom" or "vanity literature":

Conservative Positive Wisdom – Pragmatic, real-world advice about proper behavior and actions, attaining success in life, living a good and fulfilling life, etc.. Examples of this genre include: Book of Proverbs, The Instructions of Shuruppak, and first part of Sima Milka.

Critical Negative Wisdom (also called "Vanity Literature" or "Wisdom in Protest") – A more pessimistic outlook, frequently expressing skepticism about the scope of human achievements, highlighting the inevitability of mortality, advocating the rejection of all material gains, and expressing the carpe diem view that, since nothing has intrinsic value (vanity theme) and all will come to an end (memento mori theme), therefore one should just enjoy life to the fullest while they can (carpe diem theme). Examples of this genre include: Qohelet (Ecclesiastes), The Ballad of Early Rulers, Enlil and Namzitarra, the second part of Sima Milka (the son's response), and Nig-Nam Nu-Kal ("Nothing is of Value").

Another common genre is existential works that deal with the relationship between man and God, divine reward and punishment, theodicy, the problem of evil, and why bad things happen to good people. The protagonist is a "just sufferer" – a good person beset by tragedy, who tries to understand his lot in life. The most well known example is the Book of Job, however it was preceded by, and likely based on, earlier Mesopotamian works such as The Babylonian Theodicy (sometimes called The Babylonian Job), Ludlul bēl nēmeqi ("I Will Praise the Lord of Wisdom" or "The Poem of the Righteous Sufferer"), Dialogue between a Man and His God, and the Sumerian Man and His God.

The literary genre of mirrors for princes, which has a long history in Islamic and Western Renaissance literature, is a secular cognate of wisdom literature. In classical antiquity, the didactic poetry of Hesiod, particularly his Works and Days, was regarded as a source of knowledge similar to the wisdom literature of Egypt, Babylonia and Israel. Pre-Islamic poetry is replete with many poems of wisdom, including the poetry of Zuhayr bin Abī Sūlmā (520–609).

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

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For if books were written of this as the other, I doubt not but learned men with mean experience would far excel men of long experience without learning, and outshoot them in their own bow.
Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning
States what Wisdom literature is.
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The Master said, To be earnest, encouraging and kind may be called knighthood: earnest and encouraging with his friends, and kind to his brothers. 29. The Master said, If a good man taught the people for seven years, they would be fit to bear arms too. 30. The Master said, To take untaught men to war is called throwing them away.
Confucius, The Sayings of Confucius
States what Wisdom literature is; the author is tied to Wisdom literature in the knowledge graph.
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As soon as writing came into fashion, wise men, or those who fancied themselves such, would naturally endeavour to increase the number of those established and respected maxims, and to express their own sense of what was either proper or improper conduct, sometimes in the more artificial form of apologues, like what are called the fables of Aesop; and sometimes in the more simple one of apophthegms or wise sayings…
Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
States what Wisdom literature is.
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Related ideas

Place in the tradition

Part of Ancient Greek philosophy.

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