Jack in Two Worlds: Contemporary North American Tales and Their Tellers (Publications of the American Folklore Society) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0807844438 ISBN 13: 9780807844434

Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press, 1994

Synopsis

The "Jack" known to all of us from "Jack and the Beanstalk" is the hero of a cycle of tales brought to this country from the British Isles. Jack in Two Worlds is a unique collection that brings together eight of these stories as transcribed from actual performances by tellers and eight interpretive essays by leading folktale scholars.

The "two worlds" in the book's title refer to the Jack tales' popularity first among traditional Appalachian taletellers and now among storytelling revivalists. The tellers included in this volume represent both worlds. Unlike previous collections of Jack tales, in which the stories were heavily revised and rewritten, the tales in this volume have been transcribed verbatim and are presented in a format that preserves much of the oral quality of the taletellers' craft. The result is a body of richly nuanced tales that can be read with pleasure both by scholars who are studying the Jack tale tradition and by general readers who love a good story.

The taletellers are Stewart Cameron, Donald Davis, Ray Hicks, Bonelyn Lugg Kyofski, Maud Long, Frank Proffitt, Jr., Leonard Roberts, and Marshall Ward.

The essayists are Bill Ellis, Carl Lindahl, William Bernard McCarthy, W. F. H. Nicolaisen, Cheryl Oxford, Joseph Daniel Sobol, Kay Stone, Ruth Stotter, and Kenneth A. Thigpen.

About this title

Book Description:

"This collection of essays and tales enriches our understanding of folklore through its examination of traditional and revivalist storytelling and the complex relations between the two. . . . An important book for any student of folktale and storytelling and would make a useful supplementary text in a course on oral narrative."-- Ethnologies

From the Back Cover:

The 'Jack' known to all of us from 'Jack and the Beanstalk' is the hero of a cycle of tales brought to this country from the British isles. Jack in Two Worlds is a unique collection that brings together eight of these stories as transcribed from actual performances by tellers and eight interpretive essays by leading folktale scholars,

About this edition

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0807844438
• ISBN 13: 9780807844434
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336
• Editor: McCarthy William B.