SLAV 512, September 2, 2003
Intro. continued
3 areas of folklore
Material
Social
Verbal
Their connection to high culture as
Art
Drama
Literature
Review &endash; folklore scholarship begins with oral forms
Specifically epic poetry and folktale
But rapidly expands into the other areas
Show my book
Why were "other areas" first assumed to be unworthy of attention?
Problem of the source of this material
Assumed to be "handed down" to the folk after creation in the way that we create
Namely pen and paper
No understanding of the folk performer as a creative artist
Folklore was to be used to reconstruct old texts &endash; like monuments of literature
Text loss, but imperfect memory of it remains
Folklore used as a source of historical information when there is no written source
Let's go back to how folklore works
They give the 5 criteria.
Will deal with anonymity in a bit
Traditional
Variants
Formularized
An aesthetic as is almost diametrically opposed to the American aesthetic of what is good and beautiful
Different ideas of what should change and what should stay the same
American new-and-improved mentality
Yet desire for exact duplication in things like food, clothing
Stress on individuality, making things personal, authorship, if you will
Yet desire for logos in clothing, authoritative texts
Look at their rushnyky and discuss
Compulsion to make something new?
In a folk setting, no such compulsion, but you never get an exact copy
Dealing with rushnyky, I have never seen an exact copy
Whether this is intentional, or just the result of what is available
Compulsion to make it your own?
As discussed in Vogue magazine
In folk setting? Perhaps more so, but more like what is appropriate to my house, my family, desired effect in terms of symbols
Tradition dictates the degree to which you can vary
If you vary too much, others won't like it
Or they may like it a whole lot and you start a trend
Your innovation becomes traditional
Factor of anonymity here
Certain people known as particularly good
Sometimes "sign" own stuff
Or others refer to the version of so-and-so
The attitude of outsiders to innovation
A lot of times they don't like it.
SHOW MY RUSHNYKY
Nature of tradition &endash; it tends WAY back
In reality it grows and evolves
If you are inside the tradition, you don't notice its evolution
If you are outside, want it to be what you expect &endash; usually something old
Look at the various articles
Rachel on Brunvand
4 functions
Esoteric/Exoteric
Epic Laws of Folk Narrative