Everything about Folk Tales totally explained
Folklore is the body of expressive
culture, including tales,
music,
dance,
legends,
oral history,
proverbs,
jokes,
popular beliefs, customs, and so forth within a particular population comprising the
traditions (including
oral traditions) of that culture,
subculture, or
group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The academic and usually
ethnographic study of folklore is sometimes called
folkloristics. The word 'folklore' was first used by the English antiquarian
William Thoms in a letter published by the London Journal
Athenaeum in 1846.
History
The concept of folklore developed as part of the 19th century ideology of
romantic nationalism, leading to the reshaping of oral traditions to serve modern ideological goals; only in the 20th century did
ethnographers begin to attempt to record folklore without overt political goals. The
Brothers Grimm,
Wilhelm and
Jakob Grimm, collected orally transmitted German tales and published the first series as
Kinder- und Hausmärchen ("Children's and Household Tales") in 1812.
The term was coined in 1846 by an Englishman,
William Thoms, who wanted to use an
Anglo-Saxon term for what was then called "popular antiquities."
Johann Gottfried von Herder first advocated the deliberate recording and preservation of folklore to document the authentic spirit, tradition, and identity of the German people; the belief that there can be such authenticity is one of the tenets of the
romantic nationalism which Herder developed. The definition most widely accepted by current scholars of the field is "artistic communication in small groups," coined by
Dan Ben-Amos a scholar at the
University of Pennsylvania, and the term, and the associated field of study, now include non-verbal art forms and customary practices.
Types of folklore
Folklore can be divided into four areas of study: artifact (such as voodoo dolls), describable and transmissible entity (oral tradition), culture, and behavior (rituals). These areas don't stand alone however, often a particular item or element may fit into more than one of these areas.
Folklore as describable and transmissible entity
Folklore can contain religious or mythic elements, it equally concerns itself with the sometimes mundane traditions of everyday life. Folklore frequently ties the practical and the esoteric into one narrative package. It has often been conflated with
mythology, and vice versa, because it has been assumed that any figurative story that doesn't pertain to the dominant beliefs of the time isn't of the same status as those dominant beliefs. Thus,
Roman religion is called "myth" by
Christians. In that way, both "myth" and "folklore" have become catch-all terms for all figurative narratives which don't correspond with the dominant belief structure.
Sometimes "folklore" is religious in nature, like the tales of the
Welsh Mabinogion or those found in
Icelandic
skaldic poetry. Many of the tales in the
Golden Legend of
Jacob de Voragine also embody folklore elements in a Christian context: examples of such
Christian mythology are the themes woven round
Saint George or
Saint Christopher. In this case, the term "folklore" is being used in a pejorative sense. That is, while the tales of
Odin the Wanderer have a religious value to the Norse who composed the stories, because it doesn't fit into a Christian configuration it isn't considered "religious" by Christians who may instead refer to it as "folklore."
Folktales are general term for different varieties of traditional narrative. The telling of stories appears to be a cultural universal, common to basic and complex societies alike. Even the forms folktales take are certainly similar from culture to culture, and comparative studies of themes and narrative ways have been successful in showing these relationships. Also it's considered to be an oral tale to be told for everybody.
On the other hand, folklore can be used to accurately describe a figurative narrative, which has no sacred or religious content. In the
Jungian view, which is but one method of analysis, it may instead pertain to unconscious psychological patterns, instincts or
archetypes of the mind. This may or may not have components of the
fantastic (such as
magic, ethereal beings or the personification of inanimate objects). These folktales may or may not emerge from a religious tradition, but nevertheless speak to deep psychological issues. The familiar folktale, "
Hansel and Gretel," is an example of this fine line. The manifest purpose of the tale may primarily be one of mundane instruction regarding forest safety or secondarily a
cautionary tale about the dangers of famine to large families, but its latent meaning may evoke a strong emotional response due to the widely understood
themes and
motifs such as “The Terrible Mother”, “Death,” and “Atonement with the Father.”
There can be both a moral and psychological scope to the work, as well as entertainment value, depending upon the nature of the teller, the style of the telling, the ages of the audience members, and the overall context of the
performance. Folklorists generally resist universal interpretations of
narratives and, wherever possible, analyze
oral versions of tellings in specific contexts, rather than print sources, which often show the work or bias of the
writer or
editor.
Contemporary narratives common in the Western world include the
urban legend. There are many forms of folklore that are so common, however, that most people don't realize they're folklore, such as
riddles, children's
rhymes and
ghost stories,
rumors (including
conspiracy theories),
gossip,
ethnic stereotypes, and
holiday customs and life-cycle
rituals.
UFO abduction narratives can be seen, in some sense, to refigure the tales of pre-Christian
Europe, or even such tales in the
Bible as the Ascent of Elijah to heaven.
Adrienne Mayor, in introducing a bibliography on the topic, noted that most modern folklorists are largely unaware of classical parallels and precedents, in materials that are only partly represented by the familiar designation
Aesopica: "Ancient Greek and Roman literature contains rich troves of folklore and popular beliefs, many of which have counterparts in modern contemporary legends" (Mayor, 2000).
Vladimir Propp's classic study
Morphology of the Folktale (1928) became the basis of research into the structure of folklore texts. Propp discovered a uniform
structure in Russian fairy tales. His book has been translated into English, Italian, Polish and other languages. The English translation was issued in USA in 1958, some 30 years after the publication of the original. It was met by approving reviews and significantly influenced later research on folklore and, more generally, structural semantics.
Material culture
Elements such as dolls, decorative items used in religious rituals, hand-built houses and barns, and handmade clothing and other crafts are considered to be folk artifacts, grouped within the field as "material culture." Additionally, figures that depict characters from folklore, such as statues of the
three wise monkeys may be considered to be folklore artifacts, depending on how they're used within a culture. The operative definition would depend on whether the artifacts are used and appreciated within the same community in which they're made, and whether they follow a community
aesthetic.
Culture as folklore
Folklorist
William Bascom states that folklore has many cultural aspects, such as allowing for escape from societal consequences. In addition, folklore can also serve to validate a culture (romantic nationalism), as well as transmit a culture's morals and values. Folklore can also be used to assert social pressures, or relive them, in the case of
humor and
carnival.
In addition, folklorists study medical, supernatural, religious, and political belief systems as an essential, often unspoken, part of expressive culture.
Behavior as folklore
Many
rituals can be considered folklore, whether formalized in a cultural or religious system (for example weddings, baptisms, harvest festivals) or practiced within a family or secular context. For example, in certain parts of the United States (as well as other countries) one places a knife, or a pair of scissors, under the mattress to "cut the birth pains" after giving birth. Additionally, children's
counting-out games can be defined as behavioral folklore.
Categories of folklore
National or ethnic
Further Information
Get more info on 'Folk Tales'.
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