Текст "CONCEPTS"

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A. CONCEPTS

Here concepts and issues, on which folk-literary indices are based, will be described in detail. The description will (1) place the folkloristic literature in relation to other kinds of literature and letters, and delimit the various kinds of literature from each other, (2) define and explain the maze of terminology specific to the field of folk-literary research, and (3) offer to the scholar a guide to the "labyrinth behind the scenes" of indices and indexing.

A.I. VARIETIES OF LITERARY WORKS

Works of literature, belles-lettres, are obviously not all of the same kind. For our purposes (specifically in respect to chapter B.I., p. 52, "literary unit", below) we will distinguish them according to three dimensions:

• oral vs. written composition and transmission

• folk vs. high cultural status

• patterns of literary composition.

Every work has a "value" on each of these dimensions (see detailed description in Jason 1969:413-26,1988: 69-98 and 1992: 206-44).

(1) Example

"Cinderella" is a tale recorded from a folk performer (a non-profes­sional); it can be described as: an orally composed and transmitted narrative prose work of folk literature; its ethnopoetic genre is, e.g., "female fairy tale of the active heroine".

"An apple a day / keeps the doctor away." This work can be de­scribed as: a written work of folk literature in verse; it is non-narra­tive; its genre is "maxim".

The Kirgiz work "Manas" can be described as: an orally composed and transmitted narrative work in verse; it belongs to the high litera­ture of its culture and its ethnopoetic genre is "epic".

Let us now describe the dimensions for the works of literature.

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1.1. Medium of existence

“Oral" - orally composed, transmitted and/or performed works. In preliterate cultures every work is, naturally, oral. Sometimes the au­thor is remembered (e.g., poetry in Arabic pre-Islamic society, pre-7th century; see Nicholson 1907). In literate cultures, oral and written tra­ditions exist side by side and intermingle (e.g., German urban oral song in the 19th century was found to stem from third rate local hits from earlier centuries; see Meier 1906).

"Written" - basically, works composed in writing by known authors and transmitted in writing. Known authorship, however, was not al­ways the rule. Ancient written works are often of unknown author­ship (e.g., much of the literature of the ancient Near East, see Pritchard 1969); or they can be ascribed to pseudo-historical authors (e.g., an­cient Indian literature and Hellenistic apocryphal literature).

The two traditions often intermingle, and works move in both direc­tions. Many ancient and medieval works are written variants of orally composed and transmitted works. Other works are found in both the oral and the written medium, i.e., the same story is transmitted both by word of mouth and by writing.

(2) Example

The speeches of ancient Israelite prophets (see Jer. 36:4-6, 27-32; 45:1-5); Jewish Talmudic-Midrashic literature (2nd century B.C.E. to 7th century C.E.); Boccaccio's collection (14th century) contains rewritten oral folktales which can serve as examples of themes and plots oscillating between oral and written tradition. Indian litera­ture of the recent centuries produced a number of examples, e.g., the tragic love story of Hir and Ranjha has been composed in writ­ing dozens of times in Persian, Urdu and other languages of north­west India and Pakistan. At the same time, the story is performed orally in the bazaars in Pashto, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, etc. (See, e.g., Heston & Nasir 1988: 27, 69-70,117-18,165, 325, 328.)

1.2. Cultural status of the work

Every culture, even the most simple and preliterate, has literary works which carry its central cultural values. These works differ usually from similar works of related cultures, at least in some respects. Other works are peripheral and are often fully shared with other cultures, even with cultures remote in time and space. The first kind could be labeled "high", "learned", etc., literature while the second kind could be called "folk" literature. High literature is usually produced, cultivated and

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transmitted by specialists (scribes, priests, writers), whether remuner­ated in material terms (as professionals are) or not. (See examples in Finnegan 1970 for Sub-Saharan Africa; in Radin 1915, 1954-56, 1955 for American Indians; and for Indian epic in local sub-cultures see de­scriptions in Appadurai et al. 1991 and in Blackburn et al. 1989.)

In tribal and ancient societies "learned" literature often coincided with sacred literature such as myths and hymns. Large epics might be either sacred such as the Indian classical Ramayana or the vernacular Telugu oral epics like Palnati Virula Katha (Roghair 1982). Or, they may be profane like the Turkic oral epics Manas (Kirgiz) and Alpamis (Uzbek; see Chadwick and Zirmunskij 1969). All of them are of the "high" sort. European culture represents the other end of the scale. Its high litera­ture is primarily profane: classical works, high quality fine literature, etc.

Oral "folk" literature is carried by non-specialists who pursue other professions for their livelihood: such are folktales, jokes, lyric songs, proverbs, simple epics. Of the written tradition belong here popular literature, "best sellers", Trivialliteratur (detective story, science fiction, serially produced novels, magazine stories, etc.), these do provide the livelihood for their producers.

In the course of the time, a work can change its cultural status in both directions. In the hands of Boccaccio, Chaucer and the Grimm Brothers simple folktales entered high literature. With the adoption of a religion of revelation, much of ethnic mythology is relegated to sim­ple "folk belief" or "superstition" (as in Christianized Europe). Since the Renaissance classical mythology once more entered high literature and was used to embody the society's central cultural values, this time in the profane realm. National movements in 19th-century Europe moved oral folk literature into the cultural center (the most striking example is the Finnish Kalevala; for English translation see Kirby 1985).

1.3. Composition of the work

Composition should be considered on two levels: the level of texture and the level of narrative content or of poetic image (in non-narrative genres).

Texture can have three forms: verse, prose and dramatic. In the ex­tant ancient sources works in verse appear earlier than works in prose or in dramatic form (see such verse texts in Pritchard 1969). This can be explained with the help of the assumption that people considered only a composition in verse to be "real" and / or "good" literature, "inspired" literature. In spite of that, textural form in the contemporary oral lit­erature of the Euro-Afro-Asian cultural area is not a distinguishing

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quality for most ethnopoetic genres. Except for lyric songs and the so-called ballads, all other genres can appear in both verse and prose forms (and some in dramatic form too), although many appear predominantly in one of these forms (see examples in Jason 1977a, chapter 10, Ex. no.

1).

In contrast, narrativity is a distinguishing quality of the ethnopoetic genres. There are narrative genres, possessing a whole plot with com­plication and solution: myth, legend, fairy tale, novella, epic, numskull tale; quasi-narrative genres: formula tale, parable, ballad; non-narrative genres: lyric song, joke, proverb and riddle (see list and definitions below, in chapters E.I. and E.2.).

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A.2. THE LITERARY MOTIF

A work of literature is composed from motifs. Unfortunately, the label "motif" is used by scholars in widely divergent senses. For use in the classification of literature, two concepts under this label are relevant.

S. Thompson's motif is loosely defined as "the smallest element in a tale having the power to persist in tradition" (1946: 415-16). A glance at Thompson's Motif-Index or at any index done on the same lines will show that such a definition does not work. What is listed there as a "motif" are content elements on various levels: large units, such as whole episodes and one-episodic tales, side by side with such small units as a single character, requisite and deed, or a quality of these.

A second definition, which could work better, is Dundes' (1962b: 95-105) idea of labeling "aZZo-motif" the content which can fill a certain structural slot, labeled a "motif-eme". The slot used by Dundes is Propp's "function" (1928/68), which is in itself a very complex unit.

Both definitions have in common the concept of the motif being a unit of content. As such it has no variants: every change makes for a new motif (see Jason 1990a: 419-37). Following Veselovskij (1940:493-596) and Liithi (1953/54: 321-27) we will add the quality that such units are context-free and free-floating. In a literary work the individual motif is put into a context and coupled with other such individual motifs. The coupling with other motifs makes the motif function in some way and loads it with meaning. The motifs employed by a cer­tain culture constitute a common "pool"; each folk-literary genre will draw from this pool its specific assemblage of motifs and have its pre­ferred couplings of motifs. Thus, each culture will have its repertoire of motifs and their couplings. The pool of motifs may be universal and accessible to all cultures; however, that has not yet been demonstrated.

A motif-index can serve primarily bibliographical purposes. As the motif is a context-free, free-floating unit, it does not describe a reper­toire in the way type and genre indices do. A motif acquires structural, narrative and semantic function and value in the framework of a spe­cific text. For example, "children of a poor family" will in AaTh 327, "The Children and the Ogre", form a character which fills the tale role of protagonist. In sacred legends the statement "there was a very poor man who had many children to feed" contains the "children of a poor family" as a requisite which characterizes the man (who plays pro­tagonist) as being in extreme need (e.g., AaTh 750). In every such con-

crete

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use of a motif in a text, its "meaning" and "function" will depend on the place the respective motif has in the framework of the "mean­ing" and "functions" of the whole literary piece. The piece, in turn, has its contexts which determine socio-psychological meanings and social functions: literary, ethnic, social, etc., contexts. (See Jason 1977a, chap­ters 22-24; 1988: 69-98.)

In this respect, the motif can be compared to the "-etic" unit in lan­guage (such as the "phone") which is context-free and free-floating: in itself it does not carry a semantic load. In context, the etic unit becomes "-emic" and then does indeed carry a semantic load (as phones do when they become "phon-emes" in a "morph-eme"; see Pike 1954 and Dundes 1962b: 95-105; note, however, that Dundes' "motif" is equal to Propp's "function" and not to our "motif"). Pike (1954) turned these two suffixes into adjectives in the aforementioned sense. For some time, writers in social sciences have used them in a different sense: "etic" as native ideas and understandings of one's own culture; "emic" as the outsider-scholar's ideas about a native culture which he investigates.

In the index, the motifs are ordered on two levels: a "higher", ab­stract level and a "lower", concrete level. In a story will appear only motifs on the concrete level; the abstract-level motifs serve as captions in the hierarchy of the motif list. For example:

Abstract level: ThMot R227, "Wife flees from husband." Concrete level: ThMot R227.1, "Wife flees from animal husband." ThMot R227.2, "Wife flees from hated husband."

Let us give a new description of a motif for the purposes of listing elements of literary content in an index. The literary content of the work should be decomposed into the following elements which we will call "motifs":

1. single characters and their qualities

2. single requisites and their qualities

3. single deeds and their qualities

4. typical and recurrent couplings of elements 1 to 3, including sub­
   ject, action and object and thereby equaling Propp's function and
   Dundes' "allo-motif"

5. passive form: results of action

6. spatial (geographic) and temporal marks and their special qualities

7. formulae and formulaic numbers.

Such a listing can include "motifs" appearing in all genres, narrative and non-narrative, oral and written, just as Thompson's Index does (see below, chapter B.4., pp. 60-61).

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A.3. THE TALE TYPE

3.0. INTRODUCTION 3.0.1. The concept of type

A "tale type" designates a story (in prose or verse) persisting in tradi­tion, oral and/or written. While the motif designates parts of a work, the type basically designates a whole work. There exist multi-episodic works which are composed of episodes, each registered in a different type (the so called "conglomerates", see Anderson 1953:111-32; Jason 1965). The types themselves, however, have been worked out on whole tales.

The concept of tale type has been designed by the geographic-his­toric ("Finnish") school (see Aarne 1913; Anderson 1931-33:508-22 and Rohrich 1977:1012-30). The tale type is conceived in the framework of history of culture, specifically history of literature and is based on the notion of monogenesis: the story which forms the basis of a tale type was once invented by an unknown author and from him it diffused by oral transmission to wherever the tale is found today (Aarne 1913). The tales found today in oral tradition are "variants" of the original story. The description of a tale type as done by Aarne and Thompson is an idealized story, which does not correspond completely to any text recorded from a performer (such a text is a variant), but contains pro­visions for a range of variations. The geographic-historic school pro­duced many monographs dealing with single types (quoted in AaTh in the bibliography to the respective types; technical manual for mono­graphic research see Krohn 1926b). The monographs are philological-historical: they assemble and describe all available variants of the type and try to determine (a) its original form, the "archetype", (b) the time and location of the archetype's composition, and (c) the movements of the work in history and over geographic space.

In recent decades the "mini-monograph" became popular: a limited number of variants of a type were chosen for discussion. The problems raised in mini-monographs vary widely and span the whole range of questions the discipline deals with at a given moment. Among them the original culture-historical problem is only one of a multitude. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of such mini-monographs scattered in journals, congress proceedings and other volumes of papers. Some

types

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have a dozen or more of such mini-monographs. Notes to indi­vidual texts in richly annotated collections of stories amount also to mini-monographs. These notes are usually strictly culture-historically oriented (see, e.g., the works of Bolte & Polivka below, chapter El., no. 2 and Schwarzbaum 1961-63,1968,1979).

For various reasons the cultural-historical monographs did not at­tain their goals (see Jason 1970:287-94). They left, however, a very valu­able asset for future research in the assembled and described variants of the tale type. These serve as a firm basis for further phenomenological inquiry.

3.0.2. The episode

A narrative can consist of one or more episodes. If the narrative is multi-episodic, in principle, similar episodes should appear in a fixed order. Chain types (see below) are an exception; in them, only opening and closing episodes are fixed. The description of the tale type does not take boundary elements into account (opening and closing formulae -see Jason 1975b, no. 3.5.5 and 1977a, section 13.5; and Rosianu 1974, both with examples).

The episode seems to be the stable unit in narrative oral literature (of the Euro-Afro-Asian cultural area; in regard to other cultures, see, be­low, chapter B.6., pp. 86-87). It is still little investigated. Nikiforov (1927/ 73) defines it as the encounter of the pivotal tale role with a specific secondary tale role (or roles). For instance: hero (pivotal role) encoun­ters donor (secondary role) and gets help from him (Propp's functions 12-14 in Propp 1928/68); hero struggles with villain (Propp's functions 16,18). It should be added that episodes in a multi-episodic tale tend also to be set off from each other by transfers in time and / or space, i.e., between one episode and the next there is a time-lapse without action and/or there is a change of "stage" on which the events in the story take place. In any case, the episode can cut across Propp's "functions" and "moves" and is by no means identical with either of them. (Exam­ples of texts segmented according to functions, moves and episodes see in Jason 1977b: 99-139; 1978b: 110-34; 1979a: 189-215; 1979b: 36-70; 1980:1-23; 1981:47-54; 1984:79-97 and 1989:12-16,30-34; the texts are of various genres.)

3.0.3. Content vs. idea

It is important to emphasize that a tale type designates the content of a story and not an idea a story may express. (Wienert developed such

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"idea" types: his Sinntyp, which could be translated "parable type", see below, chapter El., no. 9, pp. 20, 86-149,152-54.) A text should be typed according to its content and not according to the idea the analyst maintains to be expressed in the texts.

(3) Example

The idea of "unsuccessful repetition" has no type number (Dundes 1962a: 165-74; Jason 1989). Several type numbers list stories which are based on this idea:

-AaTh 1, "The Theft of the Fish" (animal swindler novella) -AaTh 480, "The Spinning Women by the Spring. The Kind and the Unkind Girl" (reward-and-punishment fairy tale)

• AaTh 676, "Open Sesame" (reward-and-punishment fairy tale)
  -AaTh 753, "Christ and the Smith" (sacred legend)

• AaTh 1689 A, "Two Presents to the King" (wisdom novella).

Each of these tales has its specific content. They belong to widely dif­ferent genres (list of genres see below, chapter E.2.) and do not share a pool of episodes.