Folk Literature Book Pdf

[Florencia Abila]

Themotif-index and the ATU indices are regarded as standard tools in the study of folklore. For example, folklorist Mary Beth Stein said that, "Together with Thompson's six-volume Motif-Index of Folk-Literature, with which it is cross-indexed, The Types of Folktale constitutes the most important reference work and research tool for comparative folk-tale analysis.[1] Alan Dundes, who was an outspoken critic, also said substantially the same thing, without confining the application to comparative studies: "[the indices] index constitute two of the most valuable tools in the professional folklorist's arsenal of aids for analysis".[2]

In the context of the index, Thompson has defined motif as follows: "A motif is the smallest element in a tale having a power to persist in tradition. In order to have this power it must have something unusual and striking about it".[4]

But in the Motif-index itself, Thompson had also provided a more "cautious" definition:[5] "[a]nything that goes to make up a traditional narrative ... When the term motif is employed, it is always in a very loose sense, and is made to include any of the elements of narrative structure".[6]

This use of the noun motif is specialized to the field of folklore studies. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, folkloristic use of the noun motif is not summed up in the definition for literary criticism ("Motif", def. 3a), but deserves its own separate sense of this definition ("Motif", def. 3b).[7] Similarly, the compound noun motif index is used in cultural anthropology to denote "an index of standard motifs, esp. those found in folk tales".[8]

Thompson discusses composing the Motif-Index of Folk-Literature in his autobiography, A Folklorist's Progress: Reflection of a Scholar's Life.[9] In producing the motif-index, Thompson built upon the research of Finnish folklorist Antti Aarne, who in 1910 published an index of European tale-types. Thompson himself had revised this in 1928 to cover the region from Europe to Asia: this is known as the Aarne-Thompson tale type index.[10] In his Motif-Index, Thompson then compiled, classified, and numbered the traditional motifs of the mostly European folktale types in the tale-type index.[11][page range too broad]

Thompson's motif-index organizes thousands of motifs. Entries are first organized by an umbrella topic (for example, category S is "Unnatural Cruelty"). Entries are then divided into more specific subcategories. For example, entry S50 "Cruel relatives-in-law" contains the sub-entry S51.1 "Cruel mother-in-law plans death of daughter-in-law". Thompson's The Folktale includes the following overview of the motif-index:[12]

The idea has been expressed that a combined set of motifs (in the motif-index) may constitute a folktale narrative (cf. the description of the Motif-Index as "a huge catalogue of folk narrative elements that may variously combine to form whole folk narratives" by Jan Harold Brunvand).[13]

This idea had already been anticipated by Alexander Veselovsky who wrote that a "cluster of motifs" constituted a "plot", influencing Russian formalists like Vladimir Propp, whose study prefigured Thompson's Motif-Index, as has been pointed out.[14]

The chain of circumstances by which this helper joins the hero and certain details of his later experience are so uniform and well articulated as to form an easily recognizable motif, or rather cluster of motifs. This fact has caused some confusion to scholars who have not sufficiently distinguished between such a motif and the entire tale of which it forms only an important part.

The Folk Literature of South American Indians series contains twenty-four volumes dedicated to the narrative art of aboriginal South America. Its primary purpose is to provide folklore scholarship with a readily accessible and uniquely comprehensive source of the oral literature of thirty-one indigenous societies of South America. the secondary purpose of the series is to classify this body of lore according to its constituent motifs.

ATU-AT-Motif guide

Although incomplete, a great portion of the AT and ATU classification schemes can be found on this site curated by academic librarian Michael Muchow. He has linked many of them to tales stored on the Internet Archive website.

Folklore and Mythology Electronic Texts

This site is provided by retired professor D.L. Ashliman and hosted at the University of Pittsburgh. Again, there is some overlap with the other sources listed above, but some entries are unique. It is not exhaustive.

Multilingual Folk Tale Database

Folk tales from all over this world are provided on this site, in their original language or in translation. To organize the stories and make it easier to find and compare them, the stories have been classified along the Aarne-Thompson-Uther classification, which is the established standard for folk tales. Although the database contains over 10,000 stories and translations, it contains stories exemplifying only a limited portion of the ATU classes.

Perry's Index

This invaluable index to fables in the Aesopic tradition is to be found in the "Indices" section of Babrius, Phaedrus. Fables. Translated by Ben Edwin Perry in the Loeb Classical Library, volume 436 (Harvard University Press: Cambridge, 1965).

Aesopica Posteriora: Medieval and Modern Versions of Greek and Latin Fables

Aims to encompass the entire European tradition of the fable by guiding the scholar topically to ancient, Medieval, and modern fables. By Gert-Jan van Dijk. With a preface by Prof. Francisco Rodríguez Adrados and an elaborate Index Fabularum at the end of the book. Many of the fables referenced can be found in Early English Books Online.

MythFolklore.net

Online resources compiled by Laura Gibbs, a professor of mythology & folklore at the University of Oklahoma. She earned her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature: Latin, Greek, Polish. It includes an index to Aesop's Fables that she translated. (See also, Perry's Index, above).

Except where otherwise noted, this work is subject to a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which allows anyone to share and adapt our material as long as proper attribution is given. For details and exceptions, see the Harvard Library Copyright Policy 2021 Presidents and Fellows of Harvard College.

Folk Literature includes folk narratives (fables, folktales, legends, fairy tales, and storytelling); folk poetry (oral poetry, ballads, epics). Works on folklore and literature are also on this page. Works on myth are found in a separate section. Tale type and motif-indexes also have a tab to themselves.

Indiana University Press, with the generous support of the L. J. and Mary C. Skaggs Foundation, is pleased to announce the republication of this folklore classic, in honor of the centenary of the American Folklore Society.

Need help locating traditional tales, folk tales, and/or folktales in the library catalog? This chart is a starting point for titles in the juvenile collection. Select a Traditional Tale or Folklore category, the link will take you to the catalog to explore your topic.

Need help locating traditional tales in the library catalog? This chart is a starting point for titles in the juvenile collection. Select Folklore or Tale and determine the country you are interested in exploring; links will take you to the library catalog. Take time to limit search results to the location MAIN Juvenile.

"In my opinion this project of publications devoted to folk literature of South America is of paramount importance. South American mythology belongs to the spiritual inheritance of mankind on par with the great masterpieces of Greek and Roman antiquity and of the Near and Far East. At the present time this material is scattered in numerous publications most of which are not easy to locate. It would do a great service to scholars all over the world and to the general public to have them collected in a series of volumes."--Claude Levi-Strauss "It is time we had a set of volumes containing good source material for those who wish to study South American indigenous narratives; I am also quite certain that many nonspecialists would be interested in original documents of this kind."--Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff

Based on Stith Thompson's 6-volume Motif index by Stith Thompson, this database classifies and indexes themes and motifs, characters and events in folk literature: folk-tales, ballads, myths, fables, medieval romances, exempla, fabliaux, jest-books, and local legends. The classification system refers to works in which the various motifs occur.

The database corresponts to the print:

Thompson, Stith. Motif-index of folk-literature: a classification of narrative elements in folktales, ballads, myths, fables, mediaeval romances, exempla, fabliaux, jest-books, and local legends. Revised and enlarged edition. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1955-1958.

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