International Folkloristics: Classic Contributions by the Founders of Folklore

276 Pages·1999·13.248 MB·English

by  Alan Dundes (editor)

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International Folkloristics
Classic Contributions
by the Founders of Folklore
editedb y
Alan Dundes
eee Sabi PB PIE DSP BLISHERS, INC.
*MT*
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
Published in the United States of America
by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
4720 Boston Way, Lanham, Maryland 20706
http://www.rowmanlittlefield.com
12 Hid’s Copse Road
Cumnor Hill, Oxford OX2 9JJ, England
Copyright © 1999 by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
International folkloristics : classic contributions by the founders of
folklore / edited by Alan Dundes.
ps cm,
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8476-9514-X (cloth : alk. paper).—ISBN 0-8476-9515-8
(paper : alk. paper)
1. Folklore. JI. Dundes, Alan.
GR71.146 1999
398—de21 99-29463
CIP
Printed in the United States of America
™ The paper used i. n thi‘s publi.c ati. on meets the mieneei mum requi3 rements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for
Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Contents
Preface vil
Acknowledgments
1 Circular Concerning the Collecting of Folk Poetry
Jacob Grimm
Folk-Lore and the Origin of the Word
William Thoms
Request
Wilhelm Mannhardt
An Angel Flew Through the Room
Reinhold Kohler
The Study of Folk-Lore
Max Miiller
The Method of Julius Krohn
Kaarle Krohn
The Message of the Folk-Lorist
W. B. Yeats
On the Need for a Bibliography of Folklore
Giuseppe Pitre
A Dialogue in Gyergy6-Kilényfalva
Béla Bartok
10 In Search of Folktales and Songs
Boris and Yuri Sokolov
V1 Epic Laws of Folk Narrative
Axel Olrik
V1 Contents
LZ The Rites of Passage 72
Arnold van Gennep
13 The Principles of Sympathetic Magic 109
James George Frazer
14 The Structure of Russian Fairy Tales 119
Vladimir Propp
i) Observations on Folklore ea
Antonio Gramsci
16 Geography and Folk-Tale Oicotypes Loy
Carl Wilhelm von Sydow
i Irish Tales and Story-Tellers 153.
Séamus O Duilearga
18 Symbolism in Dreams 77
Sigmund Freud
19 Wedding Ceremonies in European Folklore 137
Géza Roheim
20 Strategy in Counting Out: An Ethnographic
Folklore Field Study
Kenneth S. Goldstein
Suggestions for Further Reading in the History of Folkloristics
Index
About the Editor
Preface
This book came into being for several reasons. First and foremost was to
confirm the existence of international folkloristics as an independent,
worldwide, world-class academic discipline. Second was to present a selec-
tive historical view of some of the theoretical highlights of the evolution of
folkloristics, the study of folklore. And third was simply a pragmatic wish
to facilitate the teachinogf folkloristics. The letters and articles included in
this volume are all writings I think serious students of folklore should read.
There has been much turbulent debate about the definition of folklore
ever since the term was proposed in 1846. Some folklorists oppose its usage
on nationalistic grounds, not wishing to employ an English word for “‘their”’
traditions. But even some English and American folklorists are not happy
with the term and would like to do away with it and replace it with some
other word. If one defines folkloristics as the study of folklore (as linguistics
is the study of language), however, then it seems reasonable to retain ‘‘folk-
lore” as the subject matter of folkloristics.
One way of defining folklore is to divide the word into its two constituent
parts: “folk” and “lore.” A “folk” is any group of people whatsoever who
share at least one common linking factor. It does not matter what that link-
ing factor is; it could be nationality, ethnicity, religion, occupation, kinship,
or any similar factor. Folk is a flexible concept, and a folk can be as large as
a nation and as small as a village or a family. Moreover, individuals can
obviously belong to more than one folk group. A single person may know
family folklore, ethnic folklore, occupational folklore, religious folklore,
and national folklore.
‘Lore’ refers to several hundred forms or genres, any one of which could
occupy the attention of a folklorist for a lifetime. Folklore genres include
epic, myth, folktale, legend, folksong, proverb, riddle, folk dance, supersti-
tion, games, gestures, foodways, folk costume, and many, many more.
Genres may range from the very complex—for example, a festival or holi-
day celebration—to the relatively simple, such as tonguetwisters and curses.
All folklore, no matter what genre, will exhibit “multiple existence,’ mean-
vil
Vill Preface
ing that an item will exist in more than one time and place; moreover, as a
result of the transmission process from person to person, there will inevita-
bly be variation. No two versions will be exactly the same. The presence of
multiple existence and variation distinguishes folklore from so-called high
culture and also from mass or popular culture. Great novels, symphonies,
paintings do not change over time, and there is usually just one version of
them. The same is true for motion pictures, television programs, comic
books, and other types of popular culture. Moreover, the authorship of de-
tective stories, science fiction, westerns, and romances is known, whereas
the authorship of folklore is usually not known. Most folklore is transmit-
ted orally or by example (e.g., gestures), but some folklore is written—for
example, autograph book verse, epitaphs, latrinalia (bathroom wall writ-
ings), and photocopier or FAX folklore. These latter genres do manifest
multiple existence and variation and therefore qualify as bona fide folklore.
Folklore as defined in the nineteenth century tended to be much more lim-
ited than the conception here. The folk were thought to be peasants, the
illiterate in a literate society. Without literacy, the only forms of folklore
were restricted to those that were orally transmitted. In Europe where the
discipline of folkloristics began, the peasant was virtually the sole focus of
folkloristics. The German term “‘ Volkskunde” and the Scandinavian notion
of “folk life” (rather than folklore) tended to refer to all aspects of peasant
existence (or what anthropologists would call “ethnography”’). Volkskunde
or folk life was therefore essentially peasant ethnography. This meant that
on the one hand the European concept of “folk”? was rather narrow com-
pared to the ‘‘any group whatsoever” definition, but at the same time the
“lore” portion of the European concept was much broader than a specific
set of genres inasmuch as it included everything a peasant did or thought.
It is necessary to know the older European concept of folk to understand
the essays written by nineteenth- (and some twentieth-) century folklorists.
Peasants were and are, of course, one type of folk, but the point is that they
are not the only type of folk. There are many urban folk groups—for exam-
ple, labor unions, civil rights groups, and professional athletes—with each
of these groups sharing its own specific folk speech, folk beliefs, and other
traditions. The shift from defining folk as peasant to folk as a variety of
diverse groups, both rural and urban, is an important part of the evolution
of international folkloristics. The recognition that although oral tradition is
undoubtedly the most common means of transmitting folklore it is no
longer considered a sine qua non as a criterion for defining folklore repre-
sents another critical change in the nature of folkloristic research.
Anyone who teaches folklore knows very well that no two folklorists
would necessarily agree on exactly what required readings should be as-
signed. There are, as in any field of inquiry, legitimate differences of opinion
as to what the “classics” are. Moreover, most college and university courses