The pen is mightier than the sword explained

"The pen is mightier than the sword" is an expression indicating that the written word is more effective than violence as a means of social or political change. This sentiment has been expressed with metaphorical contrasts of writing implements and weapons for thousands of years. The specific wording that "the pen is mightier than the sword" was first used by English author Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1839.

Under some interpretations, written communication can refer to administrative power or an independent news media.

Origin

The exact sentence was coined by English author Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1839 for his play Richelieu; Or the Conspiracy.[1] [2] The play was about Cardinal Richelieu, though in the author's words "license with dates and details ... has been, though not unsparingly, indulged".[1] The Cardinal's line in Act II, scene II, was more fully:[3]

The play opened at London's Covent Garden Theatre on 7 March 1839 with William Charles Macready in the lead role.[4] Macready believed its opening night success was "unequivocal"; Queen Victoria attended a performance on 14 March.[4]

In 1870, literary critic Edward Sherman Gould wrote that Bulwer "had the good fortune to do, what few men can hope to do: he wrote a line that is likely to live for ages".[2] By 1888 another author, Charles Sharp, feared that repeating the phrase "might sound trite and commonplace".[5] The Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress, which opened in 1897, has the adage decorating an interior wall.[6] [7] Although Bulwer's phrasing was novel, the idea of communication surpassing violence in efficacy had numerous predecessors.

The saying quickly gained currency, says Susan Ratcliffe, associate editor of the Oxford Quotations Dictionaries. "By the 1840s it was a commonplace."[8]

Predecessors

Earliest sources

Assyrian sage Ahiqar, who reputedly lived during the early 7th century BCE, coined the first known version of this phrase. One copy of the Teachings of Ahiqar, dating to about 500 BCE, states, "The word is mightier than the sword."[9]

According to the website Trivia Library, the book The People's Almanac[10] provides another very early example from Greek playwright Euripides, who died c. 406 BCE. He is supposed to have written: "The tongue is mightier than the blade."

Islamic sources

The Islamic prophet Muhammad is quoted, in a saying narrated by 'Abdullah ibn Amr: "There will be a tribulation that will wipe out the Arabs in which those killed on both sides are in the Hellfire. In that time the spoken word will be stronger than the sword".[11]

Abu'l-Fazl ibn Mubarak, who died in 1602 and was personal scribe and vizier to Akbar the Great, wrote of a gentleman put in charge of a fiefdom having "been promoted from the pen to the sword and taken his place among those who join the sword to the pen, and are masters both of peace and war."[12] Syad Muhammad Latif, in his 1896 history of Agra, quoted King Abdullah of Bokhara (Abdullah-Khan II), who died in 1598, as saying that "He was more afraid of Abu'l-Fazl's pen than of Akbar's sword."[13]

In contrast, Abu Tammam's Ode on the Conquest of Amorium poem intro: "The sword is the truest news [in comparison with] books... In its sharpness, the boundary between seriousness and play".[14]

Early pre-enlightenment sources

In 1529, Antonio de Guevara, in Reloj de príncipes, compared a pen to a lance, books to arms, and a life of studying to a life of war.[15] [16] Thomas North, in 1557, translated Reloj de príncipes into English as Diall of Princes.[16] The analogy would appear in again in 1582, in George Whetstone's An Heptameron of Civil Discourses: "The dashe of a Pen, is more greeuous than the counterbuse of a Launce."[17]

Netizens have suggested that a 1571 edition of Erasmus' Institution of a Christian Prince contains the words "There is no sworde to bee feared more than the Learned pen",[18] [19] but this is not evident from modern translations[20] and this could be merely a spurious quotation.

William Shakespeare in 1600, in his play Hamlet Act 2, scene II, wrote: "... many wearing rapiers are afraid of goosequills."[21]

Robert Burton, in 1621, in The Anatomy of Melancholy, stated: "It is an old saying, 'A blow with a word strikes deeper than a blow with a sword': and many men are as much galled with a calumny, a scurrilous and bitter jest, a libel, a pasquil, satire, apologue, epigram, stage-play or the like, as with any misfortune whatsoever."[22] After listing several historical examples he concludes: "Hinc quam sit calamus saevior ense patet",[22] which translates as "From this it is clear how much more cruel the pen may be than the sword."

Early modern sources

The French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821), known to history for his military conquests, also left this oft-quoted remark: "Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets." He also said: "There are only two powers in the world, saber and mind; at the end, saber is always defeated by mind." ("Il n'y a que deux puissances au monde, le sabre et l'esprit : à la longue, le sabre est toujours vaincu par l'esprit.").

Thomas Jefferson, on 19 June 1792, ended a letter to Thomas Paine with: "Go on then in doing with your pen what in other times was done with the sword: shew that reformation is more practicable by operating on the mind than on the body of man, and be assured that it has not a more sincere votary nor you a more ardent well-wisher than Y[ou]rs. &c. Thomas Jefferson"[23]

Published in 1830, by Joseph Smith, an account in the Book of Mormon related, "The word had a greater tendency to lead the people to do that which was just; yea, it had more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword".[24]

As motto and slogan

See also

Notes and References

  1. Book: Richelieu; Or the Conspiracy: A Play in Five Acts.. London. 1839. second.
  2. Book: Gould , Edward Sherman . Good English. W.J. Widdleton. 1870. New York. 63.
  3. Book: The Dramatic Works of Auston . Lytton, Lord . IX. New York. Peter Fenelon Collier. 1892. 136.
  4. Book: Macready , William Charles . Macready's Reminiscences, and Selections from His Diaries and Letters. Sir Frederick Pollock. 1875. New York. MacMillan and Co.. 471.
  5. Book: Sharp , Charles . The Sovereignty of Art. T. Fisher Unwin. 1888. London. 67.
  6. Book: Reynolds , Charles B. . Library of Congress and the Interior Decorations: A Practical Guide for Visitors. Foster & Reynolds. 1897. New York, Washington, St. Augustine. 15.
  7. Specifically, the west wall of the entrance pavilion's second floor south corridor
  8. Book: The Idioms. TheIdioms.com - Online Idioms Dictionary
  9. Book: Matthews, Victor and Benjamin, Don . Old Testament Parallels . 3rd . 304 . Paulist Press . 2006.
  10. Book: The People's Almanac . 1981 . The People's Almanac . Irving Wallace . Irving . Wallace . David Wallechinsky . David . Wallechinsky . Doubleday . New York, NY.
  11. Web site: Source: Musnad Aḥmad 6941, which has been graded Sahih (authentic) according to Ahmad Shakir.. 2014-01-30 . dmy-all .
  12. Web site: The Akbarnama Of Abu-l-Fazl . Beveridge . H. . 2 . Chapter XLVI . 1902 . 15 November 2006.
  13. Book: Latif, Syad Muhammad . Agra Historical & Descriptive with an Account of Akbar and His Court and of the Modern City of Agra, 1896 . 81-206-1709-6 . Asian Educational Services . 2003 . 264.
  14. Book: Arberry, A. J. . Arthur John Arberry . Arabic Poetry: A Primer for Students . Cambridge University Press . 1965 . 65011206 . 52.
  15. In Spanish: "¡Cuánta diferencia vaya de mojar la péñola de la tinta a teñir la lanza en la sangre, y estar rodeados de libros o estar cargados de armas, de estudiar cómo cada uno ha de vivir o andar a saltear en la guerra para a su prójimo matar!"
  16. Web site: Spanish Guides to Princes and the Political Theories in Don Quijote . Angelo J. . Di Salvo . 1989 . The Cervantes Society of America . 12 November 2006.
  17. Book: Whetstone, George . An heptameron of ciuill discourses . 1582-02-03 . dmy-all . 2nd . STC / 25337 . Thyrd Daies Exercise . Richard Iones, at the signe of the Rose and the Crowne, neare Holburne Bridge.
  18. Web site: Re: Pen vs. sword . www.phrases.org.uk. which cites Book: Titelman, Gregory Y. . Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings . 1996 . Random House . New York.
  19. Web site: the pen is mightier ... . March 2003 . Quoteland.com . 15 November 2006.
  20. Web site: Erasmus's Education of a Christian Prince . 1516 . Born . Lester K. . New York . Octagon Books . 1963 . 15 November 2006.
  21. Web site: The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark . Shakespeare . William . opensourceshakespeare.org . 15 November 2006.
  22. Web site: The Anatomy of Melancholy: What it is, with all the kinds, causes, symptoms, prognostics, and several cures of it . Burton, Robert (as Democritus Junior) . Hagen, Karl . Part i, Sect. 2, Memb. 4, Subsect. 4 . Project Gutenberg.
  23. Web site: To Thomas Paine Philadelphia, June 19, 1792 . Jefferson . Thomas . 1792-06-19 . dmy-all . From Revolution to Reconstruction . 13 November 2006.
  24. Web site: The Book of Mormon: An Account Written by the Hand of Mormon, upon Plates Taken from the Plates of Nephi . Smith, Jr. . Joseph . 1830-03-26 . dmy-all . Palmyra, New York . E. B. Grandin . 310.
  25. Book: The Railroad Jubilee. An Account of the Celebration Commemorative of the Opening of Railroad Communication Between Boston and Canada. J. E. Eastburn, city printer. Boston (Mass.). City Council. 1852. 139.
  26. News: Mightier Than the Sword" An Undetected Obscenity in the First Edition of TOM SAWYER. Mark Twain Journal. Ensor, Allison R.. 27. 1, Spring . 1989. 25.