Sententia

A sententia is a short utterance of a didactic, moral-philosophical content that expresses in a generalised form a rule of life, an ethical injunction or a profound thought about the human being and the world. A sententia is close to the aphorism but is distinguished by a marked didactic, edifying orientation: it not only states a truth but indirectly calls for its observance. Sententiae are often woven into a literary text as authorial generalisations, the remarks of sage personages or concluding morals, lending the work philosophical depth and edification. Sententiae are especially characteristic of didactic literature, the fable, the parable and Baroque bookish poetry. The sententia borders on the maxim, the aphorism and the moral and is studied by stylistics and literary theory in the aspect of the correlation of the figurative and the generalised-edifying in a literary work.