SLAV 512, November 6, 2003
A few words on tales providing the imagery/narrative that kids need
Annette and mommy tell me a story about wanting to bash J.J.'s head in
A few more words on oppositions
There is never just one
I tended to pick one as an example, but this is just not so
Strong need not be opposed to weak; can be opposed to sick, or vulnerable
And the power of oppositions does not apply to tales alone
Ilia as the great Russian hero, but he starts as a paraplegic
Also, the strongest heroes do not get to die in battle, as you might expect that they would &endash; we discussed Sviatogor's death
Robin Hood and the old woman
Similar to the race with the nag that is time and the wrestling match with the old woman who is death
Same principle as the power of passive resistance
Folklore as the most direct path to elemental truths
Back to oppositions just once more
What is within a powerful character is not just beauty under seeming ugliness
It could also be wisdom
Or power &endash; which could be destructive (beautiful, but deadly)
To what extent would you expect danger from something beautiful and to what extent from something hideous? Depends on situation
Mother archetype &endash; nurturing and devouring
Strong and protects her children
Needs to be protected, defended
Forgiving, always supportive; demands you live up to her expectations
Her sexual attributes can be so beautiful (image of beautiful young woman and baby, supposedly baby's thoughts about mom's breast) and so repulsive &endash; the genitalia of mom, the vagina dentata belief
Now look at cartoon
They retell a bit
I talk about Zipes
Sort of a one-trick pony, but his work very popular
Makes a big sensation when it first comes out
After that, he just keeps doing the same thing with more and more stories
His basic idea
Most of us know tales NOT from the oral setting, but from books
When you get a book, you get the intervention of the author/editor/compiler
And you get this person's (political) agenda
We think of tales and oral situation
In this situation, you have various correctives which control the teller and keep him from dominating the storytelling situation with his/her agenda
What are those correctives?
Audience
Tradition
How do they correct?
When the oral situation is removed, the person who presents the tales for publication can put a lot more of him/herself into the work
And then he proves by showing how the version that a particular person publishes does indeed fit what is going on in his or her life
His analysis of 3 Puss in Boots in Happily Ever After
His big splash with his first book essentially said: we assume that, when we get a FOLKtale in print form that we are getting a tale that is traditional, that has developed over a long period of time by being told over again and again
As such, we are expecting universal truths (after all, this is a folktale)
Or at least we expect things that are true for a particular culture, particular tradition
But, no, what we are really getting is what is true for a particular individual
What he says is overstated, of course
In oral situation, teller does have his or her own personal agenda
Stories he/she particularly likes
(and audience esp. enjoy because he/she tells them esp. well)
He/she may even be trying to persuade people of something by means of a tale
The example in Straddling Borders
Similarly, a person who is preparing tales for publication is not totally free to do whatever s/he wishes
Publication pressure &endash; publish what will sell
Reader pressure
Still, as literary works have within them the things that are going on in the lives of their authors and in the literary and political world of their time, so do published tales
This applies to tales "published" by non-paper means
As in cartoons
The cartoon they saw was on a government run TV network toward the end of the Soviet period
A time of some contact with the West &endash; so &endash;
Things I noticed
The vagina dentata door
The various maidens from various lands, but the Russian one is the best
Her suitor is not Russian &endash; but from one of the Central Asian republics, still ours, but a much lesser sort of being than the true Russian Ivan Soldat
Gorynych speaks in foreign tongues on occasion
He tempts the princess and prince with worldly goods, western-looking and sounding ones
And going for this Western stuff is what gets the couple into deep do-do
Ivan Soldat is a pure Russian sort, like the ideal in derevenskaia proza
He does his duty
He does not expect a reward, not even the princess
He sows his seed into mother earth, Mat' russkaia zemlia
Demands of Proppian structure that there be some wedding at the end, which there is and that there be something akin to a wedding even for Ivan Soldat
His power while in prison
The foolishness of rulers when they curtail the people
Whose power is natural, not political
Next thing we will need to do is legends, fabulates, memorates
Difference between the 3?
Russian sources are plentiful
Narodnaia proza book as example
There are LOTS more
Krinichnaia's books
Even a new one about the government
But &endash; nothing like urban legends
Perhaps one book just printed &endash; can't tell; have not seen yet
Something that comes close is published in Russkii detskii fol'klor
At least the krasnaia ruka, krasnoe pechenii, sinii avtobus type
Nothing in English except at the back of the Ivanits book
Scattered throughout Ryan
At the end of folktale collections &endash; I don't know if Haney has gotten that far yet
(aside on tale versions of epic as a possible paper topic)
Not that much study of legends &endash; except as part of folk prose and thus tales
We should read legend samples from each period and each type &endash; I will give them a list
We should read Brunvand's first book
What makes a legend folklore
How to identify
Perhaps Poor Pearl, Poor Girl as a look at the process of legend formation
After that &endash; legend texts
And we could look for patterns of belief &endash; as about the unclean force
Or about historical figures
What else do they want to look at?
We will look at some children's material courtesy of M.
More children's material?
My review of Loiter
Or Russian folk theater?