The Study of Folklore

✍ Scribed by Alan Dundes (ed.)

• Publisher: Prentice Hall
• Year: 1965
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 500
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This is an anthology which surveys the discipline of folklore. Its purpose is to consider the possible definitions, origins, formal characteristics, and functions of folklore as well as how it is transmitted in oral tradition. From this one may learn just how folklore is studied by professional folklorists.
The editor, a professional folklorist in his own right, has selected thirty-four essays on folklore, written from a variety of viewpoints: literary, psychological, historical, functional, etc. For the six sections of the book and for each of the essays, he has provided introductions and explanatory notes.
The scope of "The Study of Folklore" is essentially worldwide. The issues treated in the essays are relevant to the study of folklore everywhere. Although there are extended discussions of materials as diverse as African riddles and proverbs, American Indian tales, Yugoslav epics, and Chinese folksongs, the over-all aim is to illustrate general folklore theory and methodology rather than the folklore of any one particular geographical or cultural area.
An effort has been made to select representative essays from both the humanistic and the scientific approaches to folklore. Many of the thirty-four papers, although they are classic studies, appeared originally in professional journals and periodicals that are not widely available today, even in university libraries.

✦ Table of Contents

Preface - What is Folklore? - Folklore / William Thoms - Folk Literature: An Operational Definition / Francis Lee Utley - Folklore and Anthropology / William R. Bascom - Folklore and the Student of Literature / Archer Taylor - The Esoteric-Exoteric Factor in Folklore / Wm. Hugh Jansen - The Search for Origins - The Eclipse of Solar Mythology / Richard M. Dorson - The Three Bears / E. D. Phillips - Psychoanalysis and Folklore / Ernest Jones - Jack and the Beanstalk / Humphrey Humphreys - Jack and the Beanstalk / William H. Desmonde - Jack and the Beanstalk: An American Version / Martha Wolfenstein - On the Symbolism of Oedipus / William A. Lessa - Form in Folklore - Epic Laws of Folk Narrative / Axel Olrik - The Hero of Tradition / Lord Raglan - Recurrent Themes in Myths and Mythmaking / Clyde Kluckhohn - Stability of Form in Traditional and Cultivated Music / George Herzog - Unifying Factors in Folk and Primitive Music / Bruno Nettl - Riddles in Bantu / P. D. Beauchat - Structural Typology in North American Indian Folktales / Alan Dundes - The Transmission of Folklore - Folktale Studies and Philology: Some Points of View / C. W. von Sydow - Some Experiments on the Reproduction of Folk Stories / F. C. Bartlett - Some Cases of Repeated Reproduction / Robert H. Lowie - Yugoslav Epic Folk Poetry / Albert B. Lord - The Cock and the Mouse / Frank Hamilton Cushing - The Functions of Folklore - Four Functions of Folklore / William R. Bascom - The Role of Proverbs in a Nigerian Judicial System / John C. Messenger, Jr. - Folksongs as Regulators of Politics / Betty Wang - Changing Agricultural Magic in Southern Illinois: A Systematic Analysis of Folk-Urban Transition / Herbert Passin and John W. Bennett - The It Role in Children's Games / Paul V. Gump and Brian Sutton Smith - Selected Studies of Folklore - Some Notes on the Guessing Game, How Many Horns Has the Buck? / Paul G. Brewster - Tina's Lullaby - Hugh Tracey - Origin and Significance of Pennsylvania Dutch Barn Symbols / August C. Mahr - Something About Simple Simon / Harry B. Weiss - The Star Husband Tale / Stith Thompson - Suggestions for Further Reading in Folklore