Good fences make good neighbours": history and significance of an ambiguous proverb

Introduction

Contrary to popular opinion, those seemingly plain and simple truths called proverbs are anything but straightforward bits of traditional wisdom. A glance into any proverb collection reveals their contradictory nature: "Absence makes the heart grow fonder" but "Out of sight, out of mind." Proverbs are not universal truths, and their insights are not based on a logical philosophical system. Instead, they contain the general observations and experiences of humankind, including life's multifaceted contradictions. But matters are even more complex, since the meaning of a proverb depends on its function in a given context (see Krikmann 1974; Mieder 1989a, 20-2). As Kenneth Burke observed, metaphorical proverbs are strategies for dealing with situations: "In so far as situations are typical and recurrent in a given social structure, people develop names for them and strategies for handling them" (Burke 1941, 256). By naming social situations, proverbs express generalisations, influence or manipulate people, comment on behavioural patterns, satirise societal ills, strengthen accepted beliefs or comment on practical social conduct (Goodwin and Wenzel 1979; also in Mieder and Dundes 1994, 140-60). Above all, proverbs are used to free complex situations from ambiguity. However, as proverbs as analogies are of their nature ambiguous, that is, open to interpretation, they are of a vexing and paradoxical analogic ambiguity themselves (see Lieber 1984; also in Mieder and Dundes 1994, 99-126).

This is true for the proverb "Good fences make good neighbours" in literary works, legal briefs, mass media, advertisements, and oral communication on a personal or socio-political level. The inherent ambiguity of the proverb is that its metaphor contains both the phenomenon of fencing someone or something in while at the same time fencing that person or thing out. So it is natural to ask: when and why do good fences make good neighbours? when and why should we build a fence or wall in the first place? when and why should we tear such a structure down? The proverb contains, to quote Caroline Westerhoff, the "irresolvable tension between boundary and hospitality," between demarcation and common space, between individuality and collectivity, and between other conflicting attitudes that separate people from each other, be it as neighbours in a village or as nations (Westerhoff 1999, 157). Much is at stake when erecting a fence or a wall, no matter whether the structure is meant for protection or separation, to wit the Great Wall of China, the Berlin Wall, the walls that separate Americans from Mexicans or Israelis from Palestinians, and one individual neighbour from another. What, for heaven's sake, is the folk wisdom of the proverb "Good fences make good neighbours"? After all, should it not be the goal of humankind to tear down fences and walls everywhere? How can anybody justify the erection or maintenance of barriers between people and neighbours?

To answer these questions, a wealth of materials concerning the history, use, and meaning of the proverb needs to be investigated. [1] For the sake of clarity, I have divided my comments and contextualised texts into eleven sections: International Proverbs about Fences; Two English Antecedents to the Proverb; Proverbs of the Structure "Good X make(s) good Y"; The History of the Proverb before 1914; The Proverb in Dictionaries of Quotations and Proverbs; Robert Frost's Poem "Mending Wall" and the Proverb in Literary Works; Fences as Positive and Aesthetic Structures; Housing Feuds over Fences; Metaphorical Fences; The Proverb and the Law; and International Politics and the Proverb. I have attempted to give a complete picture of this fascinating proverb, but have omitted many additional texts for want of space. The study of but one proverb like "Good fences make good neighbours" is an intriguing exercise in culture, folklore, history, language, mentality, psychology, and worldview, indicating clearly that there is no such thing as a simple proverb.

International Proverbs about Fences

People everywhere and at all times have seen the pros and cons of a fence marking property lines and keeping people from infringing on each other's space. Some of them are similar to the basic idea of the proverb "Good fences make good neighbours" that advocates some distance between neighbours: "There must be a fence between good neighbours" (Norwegian), "Between neighbours' gardens a fence is good" (German), "Build a fence even between intimate friends" (Japanese),"Love your neighbour, but do not throw down the dividing wall" (Indian [Hindi]), and "Love your neighbour, but put up a fence" (Russian). There is even the German proverb "A fence between makes love more keen" (see Mieder 1986, 155-6, 346). If only social and political walls could bring about love between the parties! As in the late medieval Latin proverb Bonum est erigere dumos cum vicinis ("It is good to erect hedges with the neighbours"), folk wisdom states again and again that some distance between neighbours might be a good idea for the sake of privacy (Singer and Liver 1995-2002, 13:355).