Folklore and Literature: Rival Siblings - Hardcover

Rosenberg, Bruce

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0870496816 ISBN 13: 9780870496813

Publisher: University of Tennessee Press, 1991

Synopsis

Only a few decades ago, American folklore research focused primarily on narrative folklore with obvious literary connections, such as the ballad and the folktale. In the past twenty years, however, folklore studies have veered sharply away from literature and even from text-based products to focus largely on oral folkloric process. In this thoughtful work, a distinguished scholar describes key ways in which theories and methodologies developed in such oral folklore studies have benefited literary criticism and analysis.

Vladimir Propp devised a theory of structuralism to examine folktales. Popularized versions of Propp's theory were used in literary theory for nearly twenty years. Parry and Lord, using folkloric techniques to study Yugoslavian folksingers as a means of learning how Homeric epics were composed, established principles since employed by thousands of literary critics. Folk narratives persist in contemporary life and literature in such forms as "urban legends." Knowledge of folk custom, ritual, and belief can enhance aesthetic understanding. And analyzing lineality and simultaneity in literature and folklore yields fruitful insights.

In addition to summarizing extant ideas and studies, Bruce Rosenberg offers surprising new interpretations and discoveries that expand the boundaries of both folklore and literature. Illustrating his contentions with examples from widely varying periods and cultures, the author affirms the unique potential of interdisciplinary inquiry.

Bruce A. Rosenberg was professor of English and American civilization at Brown University.

About this title

About the Author

Bruce A. Rosenberg was professor of English and American civilization at Brown University.

Reviews

Literature's dependence on a few folktale plots is a cliche, and the significance of structuralist theory cannot have escaped many scholars, so Rosenberg's insistence on the interrelation of folklore and literature is nothing new. He surveys the foundational work of Aarne, Thompson, and Propp and the oral-formulaic theories of Parry and Lord, but the references are too elliptical to be clear to nonspecialists, while explanations of methodology will be redundant to folklorists. Bits of good material, of interest to medievalists and other literary scholars (especially on Beo wulf and on Chaucerian narrative), are buried in this disjointed collection of chapters. Serious editorial lapses include the complete absence of footnotes, forcing inappropriate supplementary matter into the body of the text and further blurring its weak structure. The parity of literary and narrative-folklore studies is the author's underlying theme, but his preoccupation with status in the academic hierarchy does nothing to make his arguments on the symbiosis of the two disciplines more convincing.
- Patricia Dooley, Univ. of Washington Lib. Sch., Seattle
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Tennessee Press
• Publication date: 1991
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0870496816
• ISBN 13: 9780870496813
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320