The first kind of wisdom poetry was written in ancient Mesopotamia, including the Sumerian Hymn to Enlil, the All-Beneficent.
Sigmund Mowinckel argues that wisdom poetry, encapsulated mainly in sayings or proverbs, was widespread in antiquity.
[3] Dan Pagis identifies Samuel ibn Naghrillah as an originator of the wisdom poetry genre.
[4] Wisdom poems were a significant aspect of Anglo-Saxon literary culture, written in the Old English language.
[6] Carolyne Larrington, whose study A Store of Common Sense compares Old English and Old Icelandic (or Old Norse) wisdom poetry, defines a wisdom poem as one that "exists primarily to impart a body of information about the condition of the world ... or about the past".