Narrative Logo - Click for Main Menu
Lecture I - Introduction and Orientation - the Magic of Once Upon a
Time (2)
So, what do we have here? This is a
definition of the Folktale from the Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition.
Caption: Scenes from
Cinderella from an old 19th Century book. Mother and three
sisters. Cinderella and the Prince, dancing.
The Columbia Encyclopedia: Sixth Edition. 2000.
folktale
general term for any of numerous varieties of traditional narrative. The telling of
stories appears to
be a cultural universal, common to primitive and complex societies alike. Even the forms
folktales
take are demonstrably similar from culture to culture, and comparative studies of themes
and
narrative techniques have been successful in showing these relationships. Among the
foremost
folklorists of the 19th cent. were Oskar Dähnhardt in Germany, S. O. Addy in England,
Paul
Sébillot in France, and Y. M. Sokolov in Russia. Major 20th-century scholars in the field
include
Franz Boas, Richard Chase, Marie Campbell, and Stith Thompson. Folklorists make
distinctions
among the categories of folktales. Legends and traditions are narratives of an explanatory
nature
concerning creation and tribal beginnings, supernatural beings, and quasi-historical
figures (e.g.,
King Arthur, Lady Godiva). These stories are related as fact and concern a specific time
and
place. Fairy tales are entirely fictional and often begin with such formulas as Once
upon a
time
and In a certain country there lived
. Popular
examples recount the supernatural
adventures and mishaps of youngest daughters, transformed princes, mermaids, and wood
fairies
and elves (e.g., Cinderella, Rumplestiltskin, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Hansel and
Gretel). Animal tales abound in every culture; most of them are clearly anthropomorphic,
the
animals assuming human personalities. Such tales are classified according to three
subdivisions:
the etiological tale, or tale concerning origins (e.g., Great Hare of the Native North
Americans);
the fable pointing to a moral (Aesops fables); and the beast epic (e.g., Reynard the
Fox; see
bestiary). Myths, which are more difficult to define satisfactorily, treat happenings of a
long-ago
time; they generally concern the adventures of gods, giants, heroes, nymphs, satyrs, and
villains,
as well as etiological themes. See also mythology; monsters and imaginary beasts in
folklore; elf;
fairy; goblin; gremlin; troll.
Bibliography
See S. Thompson, The Folktale (1946); V. O. Binner, American Folktales (1966) and
International Folktales (1967); R. M. Dorson, America in Legend (1974); H. Courlander, A
Treasury of African Folklore (1975), A Treasury of Afro-American Folklore (1976), and
The Tigers Whisker and Other Tales from Asia and the Pacific (1995); A. Clarkson and
G.
B. Cross, World Folktales (1984).
continue with Lecture
I Notes
|