Aphorisms-or philosophical short sayings-appear everywhere, from Confucius to Twitter, the Buddha to the Bible, Heraclitus to Nietzsche. Yet despite this ubiquity, the aphorism is the least studied literary form. What are its origins? How did it develop? How do religious or philosophical movements arise from the enigmatic sayings of charismatic leaders?
Andrew Hui is associate professor of humanities at Yale-NUS College, Singapore. He is the author ofThe Poetics of Ruins in Renaissance Literature. |
