The line has entered common use and has become associated with more recent figures. "Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel" is a quotation - sometimes misquoted with "on" in place of "upon" - from Alexander Pope's "Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot" of January 1735. Butterfly on a Wheel (US: Shattered, Europe: Desperate Hours) is a 2007 British–Canadian mystery thriller film directed by Mike Barker, co-produced and written by William Morrissey, and starring Pierce Brosnan, Gerard Butler, and Maria Bello. The line is a quotation from Alexander Pope's poem "Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot." pierce brosnan gerard butler maria bello butterfly on a wheel twists and turns edge of your seat great job neil and abby tom ryan mike barker husband and wife director mike worth watching without giving great movie young daughter surprise … Read reviews that mention. Always by car, always in spring or fall. A rhetorical question referring to an excessive amount of force that has been applied to achieve something minor, unimportant, or insignificant. That the wheel was used as a medieval torture device adds sadistic insult to gratuitous injury. Witness: Butterflies on a Wheel Anthony Doerr ‘Butterflies: a long, shimmering curtain.’ Between 1995 and 2005, because of graduate school, jobs, wanderlust and love, I moved across America sixteen times. The British rock band Coldplay used the lyric “The wheel breaks the butterfly” in the 2011 song ‘Paradise’. Break a butterfly on a wheel definition: to use far more force than is necessary to do something | Meaning, pronunciation, translations and examples The film’s title is an allusion to a line of Alexander Pope’s Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot: “Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?” The line is usually interpreted as questioning why someone would put massive effort into achieving something minor or unimportant. Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel? Break a butterfly on a wheel definition: to use far more force than is necessary to do something | Meaning, pronunciation, translations and examples The British rock band Oasis used the lyric “Catch the wheel that breaks the butterfly” in the 2008 song ‘Falling Down’. Butterfly on a Wheel. It would be difficult to think that one would use such a device on a fragile, insignificant, and innocuous butterfly. To "break on a wheel" refers to a brutal form of torture, the sort used by the Holy Inquisition. Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel? Butterfly On A Wheel by The Mission UK song meaning, lyric interpretation, video and chart position vb , breaks, breaking, broke, broken. (redirected from who breaks a butterfly on a wheel ) A rhetorical question referring to an excessive amount of force that has been applied to achieve something minor, unimportant, or insignificant. to break a butterfly on a wheel definition, to break a butterfly on a wheel meaning | English dictionary.