Prose Genres of Oral Lore

    Recall that we have categorized oral folklore according to two distinctions: true versus false; prose versus poetry.

            PROSE                POETRY

TRUE             myth                    myth
TRUE            (none)                    epic/lament
TRUE            memorats/fabulates        historical song
TRUE/FALSE?    legend                ballad
FALSE        tale                    lyric songs

Memorats/fabulates:
    Memorats/fabulates are the prose equivalent of an historical song. They describe eye-witness events; things that happened to people and were then told to their acquaintances, who passed on the stories. They must include a description of where this happened and who it happened to and similar facts, for the sake of veracity. (discussion and examples in Ivanits).

Legends:
    Legends, like ballads, are an unusual genre because they can be either true or false. They allow for debate over deeply held belief and express doubt (and faith) in these cherished, but sometimes controversial issues, like religion, heroism, social norms, etc. As with ballads, this distinction depends on the attitude of the teller and listener. A common example is the legend of George Washington and the Cherry Tree. As a child, I believed this legend. When I grew up, I discovered that it was not true. Similar American legends include those of Johnny Appleseed and Paul Bunyan. In many cases, legends are about famous people, so that there is some truth in them, which lends veracity to the story. Unlike ballads, they are not particularly melodramatic. Like ballads, they may or may not have a semi-tragic or sad ending.

Tales:
    Tales are fantastic stories. This genre is often assumed to be particularly addressed to children, who may believe them, while an adult teller knows that the story is untrue. Therefore, we classify them as untrue stories. This genre is perhaps the most studied of all the genres, although myth and epic have also been extensively examined. One interesting facet of tales is that they share many features with myth, despite the fact that they are untrue and are not associated with the sacred in any way. However, the tale is not necessarily a genre only limited to children, as we will see, although children are one audience of many.

Tales provide elemental and essential information about how to behave and as such, can socialize children, but also remind adults about cultural norms (and breaking social rules as well). Tales of all cultures seem familiar and resonate with us, because they deal with what it means to be human. Jack Zipes, a tale specialist, says that tales represent an alternate, but idealized reality. They contain information about the most basic human concerns: a child’s relationship to parents and the world, food, marriage, suffering, etc. Note, however, that a nation’s tales are characterized by cultural metaphors, which teach us a great deal about that society’s beliefs as well as what it means to be human.

Tale Types:
     The knowledge that tales from many cultures share many features was the result of the discovery that there was a common Indo-European heritage. This connection was first discovered by German linguists in the 1800’s, who realized that Sanskrit was related to their own language, as well as many of the European languages. Folklorists began studying the tales to discover whether our cultural heritage included more than language, but also oral literature. The Brothers Grimm, who collected the German tales we all know, were important participants in this research.
    These associations have been detailed in The Tale Type Index, compiled by two Finnish folklorists, Aarne and Thompson. Their goal was to show that there was to recreate the original tale which had migrated from our ancient homeland. They wanted to trace this migration and find out where this ancient homeland was. There are several problems with this endeavor. It is always possible that they missed some versions of the tale along the way. It is very difficult to record every single version of a tale all over Europe and India. It is also possible that people who wrote down the tale wrote it down incorrectly. Thus Aarne and Thompson’s theory about the original tale is of no real importance. What is interesting is that they discovered six tale types which exist in all cultures, or at least in all Indo-European cultures. Although, many, if not all, of the same types have been discovered in Asia and Africa as well. The types are:

    1) animal tales, in which animals are the main characters;
    2) magic (or fairy) tales, in which the plot includes a quest for a magic object;    
    3) hero tales, in which a human hero is the main character and the tale describes his/her magical abilities;
    4) legends, (described above);
    5) realistic tales, which tell about daily life;
    6) anecdote (including tales about fools), which are short humorous tales;
    7) formula tales, which are tales with a formulaic structure
    8) memorats/fabulates, which are first/second person accounts of actual events, and by some are classified as a type of legend. 

    These are subjective categories and sometimes tales go across boundaries and are difficult to classify, which is the main problem with this system. For example, the Russian tale, “The Peasant, The Bear and The Fox.” It has a human character, so it is not clearly an animal tale. It may be better classified as an anecdote. In addition, there are many hero and magic tales in which the human turns into an animal. Should they then be classified as magic tales?
    
Propp:
    Vladimir Propp, a Soviet folklorist and early proponent of the Formalist school, decided that because of these problems, this method was flawed. He claimed that tale typing was unscientific and too intuitive. He decided that to classify tales, one must apply scientific rigor to the tale itself, without any consideration for details. This method works well for tales because they are not tied to any particular context. Tales are told anytime, anywhere and lots of versions exist. In this way, they differ from myth, epic and lament, which are bound to a special time and have sacred content.
    In his book, The Structure of the Magic Tale, Propp studied 100 of Afanas’ev’s tales which were classified as magic tales. His goal was to find consistent plot features they all shared, regardless of individual variations. In this way, he established an objective definition for what the magic tale. Once he had defined the method, he thought other researchers would apply it to the remaining five tale types. They did not, but we do have a good magic tale definition as a result of this research.

Propp’s Magic Tale Structure:
    The basic element of tale is a function. A function is defined as what a character in a tale does. The function, i.e., an action and its results, is most important trait for classifying a tale. The character is unimportant. It does not matter whether the character is a woman, man, animal or an object, as long as the function is fulfilled. The functions are the stable and constant elements of a given tale. The magic tale has 31 distinct functions which must occur in the same sequence. Any function can be omitted except the lack, which the object of the quest, i.e., a tale cannot be a magic tale without a quest. Of the remaining functions that are present, they will be in the same sequence. Propp also discovered that there are four basic parts to a magic tale: introduction of the characters; the body of story (in which the lack is made known) ; the donor sequence (in which the lack is liquidated); hero’s return.
    Propp also said that there were certain characters or dramatic personae that show up in a magic tale. They are: hero, villain, donor, helper, dispatcher, false hero, prince/princess, victim. We will discuss the functions, the four parts of a magic tale and the dramatis personae in class.
    Propp made three conclusions about functions that should be noted:

    1) a given action in a tale may serve two functions at the same time. This is called assimilation;
    2) the same action can fulfill two different functions, depending on where in the tale this action occurs, since it may have different results. The results are what are most important in defining a function;
    3) a tale can have more than one lack. When one lack is resolved and another presents itself, there are tales within tales. Propp calls each of these mini-tales, a move. When tale has two or more moves, there are three basic types of story:  a)  what was lack in first move is a magical agent in another move. For example, a hero must find a magic horse and then the horse is what s/he needs to resolve another lack; b) there maybe two villainous actions. This is common in stories about two brothers or sisters who go on separate quests; c) the story has a false hero. After the real hero finds the object of the quest, the objects is stolen by the false hero, which creates a new lack.

    Propp also noted that there were two other important characteristics of magic tales. The first is trebling. In a given tale, functions may repeat in threes, so that there may be three battles with three villains in one story. The second is that motivation for behavior is lacking in general. The villain is evil simply because s/he is evil. The hero is heroic, because he is available. Tales lack the character development and explanation for behavior that are so important to epic. Unlike in epic, there is no change in personality as a result of the events in the tale. Propp said that it was most important that the hero represents everyman, even down to his/her name, which is generic, like Ivan, John, Ian, Jack/Maria, Mary, Marie, etc. The reason for these differences from epic is that tales are elemental, pre-cultural material. The cultural differences arise in the choice of whom or what fills the slots, but the role itself is generic. Thus, if Ivan, not Maria, does something it tells something about the expectations for men versus women in Russian culture. These differences are especially important for this class, because they reveal what the tales are teaching to kids about their own culture.
    When his book was published in 1928, it had a major impact on folklore, by initiating structuralist analysis. Propp thought he had solved one of the major problems about tale typing. However, theorists discovered fairly quickly that this system works well in Western societies, which view three as a positive number, but in dualist societies, such as China, this method was not effective for tale typing.
    However, what Propp did manage to do, was establish that there was a significant narrative pattern which Indo-European cultures share. This pattern has become the basis for much of what we consider good storytelling. While it does not work for animal tales, for example, it does tell us something important about one set of tale patterns.

Trickster Tales:
    I noted that Propp’s structure doesn’t work on animal tales, including the trickster tales, which involve an animal who tricks either other animals or humans. As you know from reading several tales, the Russian trickster is Little Sister Fox, Lisitsa Sestrichka, who mainly sets out to torment the wolf or, in some stories, stupid peasants. We have said that tales help socialize children, so that they learn what is means to be human and how they should behave. The animals tales have a special role in children’s socialization. The tricks in these tales center around fundamental distinctions which children must learn to survive and be fully socialized.
    The basic distinctions the child must make are:
    1) body/not body
    2) food/not food
    3) living/not living
    Children often are confused by social rules that seem arbitrary. These stories help to set him/her straight. The most important part, i.e., the trick, in these stories is when the characters fail to make important distinctions and, as a result, are hurt in some way. in the stories are when characters fail to make the distinctions and they are hurt in some way. Who makes the distinction is not important, so that fox can be tricked as well as being the trickster.
    As the child gets older, more important social distinctions must be made also, such as treatment of elders, the opposite sex, proper ritual behavior and ambiguities in language. The trickster tales also deal with these issues. Find examples from the tales to discuss in class.

Paul Radin:
    Radin did a study of the Coyote tales of the Winnebagos in his book, The Trickster. He postulates that the stories parallel child development. The first thing a child learns is what is my body and what is not. Then they learn to tell what is part of external physical world, e.g., living and not living. Finally, they learn the complex rules of the external social world, e.g., how elders, members of the opposite sex, authority figures, etc. should be treated.
    Radin says that it is important that the trickster is a random amoral figure. He acts (both creatively and destructively) without any purpose. Nothing is willed consciously. This lack of purpose and reason is especially important to a child, because s/he must learn the way a trickster does, by trial and error. Children always feel as though they are behaving in the wrong way and are frustrated. Children identify with the trickster, who messes up and is punished like they are. This pattern reinforces the idea that social distinctions are important. Not only I get punished, but everyone does when they behave badly.