Traditional story
Traditional stories, or
Anecdote
An anecdote is a short and amusing or interesting
Anecdotes are often of
The word 'anecdote' (in
Apologue
An apologue or apolog (from the Greek ἀπόλογος, a "statement" or "account") is a brief fable or allegorical story with pointed or exaggerated details, meant to serve as a pleasant vehicle for a moral doctrine or to convey a useful lesson without stating it explicitly. It is like a parable, except that it contains supernatural elements like a fable, often the personification of animals or plants. Unlike a fable, the moral is more important than the narrative details. As with the parable, the apologue is a tool of rhetorical argument used to convince or persuade.
Among the best known ancient and classical examples are that of Jotham in the Book of Judges (9:7-15); "The Belly and its Members", by the patrician Agrippa Menenius Lanatus in the second book of Livy; and perhaps most famous of all, those of Aesop. Well-known modern examples of this literary form include George Orwell's Animal Farm and the Br'er Rabbit stories derived from African and Cherokee cultures and recorded and synthesized by Joel Chandler Harris. The term is applied more particularly to a story in which the actors or speakers are either various kinds of animals or are inanimate objects. An apologue is distinguished from a fable in that there is always some moral sense present in the former, which there need not be in the latter. An apologue is generally dramatic, and has been defined as "a satire in action."
An apologue differs from a parable in several respects. A parable is equally an ingenious tale intended to correct manners, but it can be true in the sense that "when this kind of actual event happens among men, this is what it means and this is how we should think about it", while an apologue, with its introduction of animals and plants, to which it lends ideas, language and emotions, contains only metaphoric truth: "when this kind of situation exists anywhere in the world, here is an interesting truth about it." The parable reaches heights to which the apologue cannot aspire, for the points in which animals and nature present analogies to man are principally those of his lower nature (hunger, desire, pain, fear, etc.), and the lessons taught by the apologue seldom therefore reach beyond prudential morality (keep yourself safe, find ease where you can, plan for the future, don't misbehave or you'll eventually be caught and punished), whereas the parable aims at representing the relations between man and existence or higher powers (know your role in the universe, behave well towards all you encounter, kindness and respect are of higher value than cruelty and slander). It finds its framework in the world of nature as it actually is, and not in any parody of it, and it exhibits real and not fanciful analogies. The apologue seizes on that which humans have in common with other creatures, and the parable on that which we have in common with a greater existence. Still, in spite of the difference of moral level, Martin Luther thought so highly of apologues as counselors of virtue that he edited and revised Aesop and wrote a characteristic preface to the volume. The parable is always blunt and devoid of subtlety, and requires no interpretation; the apologue by nature necessitates at least some degree of reflection and thought to achieve understanding, and in this sense it demands more of the listener than the parable does.
The origin of the apologue is extremely ancient and comes from the
Length is not an essential matter in the definition of an apologue. Those of La Fontaine are often very short, as, for example, "Le Coq et la Perle" ("The Cock and the Pearl"). On the other hand, in the romances of Reynard the Fox we have medieval apologues arranged in cycles, and attaining epical dimensions. An Italian fabulist, Corti, is said to have developed an apologue of "The Talking Animals" reaching twenty-six cantos.
A work by P. Soullé, La Fontaine et ses devanciers (1866), is a history of the apologue from the earliest times until its final triumph in France.
Chivalric romance
As a
Originally, romance literature was written in Old French, Anglo-Norman and Occitan, later, in English and German. During the early 13th century romances were increasingly written as prose. In later romances, particularly those of French origin, there is a marked tendency to emphasize themes of courtly love, such as faithfulness in adversity.
During the
Creation myth
A creation myth is a symbolic narrative of how the world began and how people first came to inhabit it.
Creation myths often share a number of features. They often are considered
Etiological myth
An etiological myth, or origin myth, is a
One type of origin myth is the creation myth (or cosmogonic myth), which describes the creation of the world. However, many cultures have stories set after the cosmogonic myth, which describe the origin of natural phenomena and human institutions within a preexisting universe.
In Western classical scholarship, the word aition (from the Ancient Greek αἴτιον, "cause") is sometimes used for a myth that explains an origin, particularly how an object or custom came into existence.
Fable
A fable, as a literary genre, is a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features
A fable differs from a parable in that the latter excludes animals, plants, inanimate objects, and forces of nature as actors that assume speech and other powers of humankind.
Usage has not always been so clearly distinguished. In the
Factoid
A factoid is a questionable or spurious (unverified, false, or fabricated) statement presented as a fact, but with no veracity. The word can also be used to describe a particularly insignificant or novel fact, in the absence of much relevant context.[16] The word is defined by the Compact Oxford English Dictionary as "an item of unreliable information that is repeated so often that it becomes accepted as fact".[17]
Factoid was
Factoids may give rise to, or arise from, common misconceptions and urban legends.
Fairy tale
A fairy tale (pronounced /ˈfeəriˌteɪl/) is a type of short story that typically features
In less technical contexts, the term is also used to describe something blessed with unusual happiness, as in "fairy tale ending" (a happy ending)[21] or "fairy tale romance" (though not all fairy tales end happily). Colloquially, a "fairy tale" or "fairy story" can also mean any far-fetched story or tall tale.
In cultures where
Fairy tales are found in oral and in literary form. The history of the fairy tale is particularly difficult to trace because only the literary forms can survive. Still, the evidence of literary works at least indicates that fairy tales have existed for thousands of years, although not perhaps recognized as a genre; the name "fairy tale" was first ascribed to them by Madame d'Aulnoy in the late 17th century. Many of today's fairy tales have evolved from centuries-old stories that have appeared, with variations, in multiple cultures around the world.[23] Fairy tales, and works derived from fairy tales, are still written today.
The older fairy tales were intended for an audience of adults, as well as children, but they were associated with children as early as the writings of the
Folklorists have classified fairy tales in various ways. The
A fairy tale with a tragic rather a happy ending is called anti-fairy tale.
Folklore
Folklore (or lore) consists of
Folklore can be divided into four areas of study: artifact (such as voodoo dolls), describable and transmissible entity (oral tradition), culture, and behavior (rituals). These areas do not stand alone, however, as often a particular item or element may fit into more than one of these areas.[25]
Folkloristics
Folkloristics is the term preferred by academic folklorists[dubious ] for the formal, academic discipline devoted to the study of folklore. The term itself derives from the nineteenth-century German designation folkloristik (i.e., folklore). Ultimately, the term folkloristics is used to distinguish between the materials studied, folklore, and the study of folklore, folkloristics. In scholarly usage, folkloristics represents an emphasis on the contemporary, social aspects of expressive culture, in contrast to the more literary or historical study of cultural texts.
Ghost story
A ghost story may be any piece of
Joke
A joke is something spoken, written, or done with humorous intention. Jokes may have many different forms, e.g., a single word or a gesture (considered in a particular context), a question-answer, or a whole short story. The word "joke" has a number of synonyms.
To achieve their end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices. Jokes may have a punch line, i.e. an ending to make it humorous.
A
Legend
A legend (
The Brothers Grimm defined legend as folktale historically grounded.[26] A modern folklorist's professional definition of legend was proposed by Timothy R. Tangherlini in 1990:[27]
Legend, typically, is a short (mono-) episodic, traditional, highly ecotypified[c] historicized narrative performed in a conversational mode, reflecting on a psychological level a symbolic representation of folk belief and collective experiences and serving as a reaffirmation of commonly held values of the group to whose tradition it belongs."
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths.
Oral tradition
Oral tradition and oral lore is cultural material and tradition transmitted orally from one generation to another.
A narrower definition of oral tradition is sometimes appropriate.
Parable
A parable is
Some scholars of the
Political myth
A political myth is an ideological explanation for a political phenomenon that is believed by a social group.
In 1975, Henry Tudor defined it in Political Myth published by Macmillan. He said
A myth is an interpretation of what the myth-maker (rightly or wrongly) takes to be hard fact. It is a device men adopt in order to come to grips with reality; and we can tell that a given account is a myth, not by the amount of truth it contains, but by the fact that it is believed to be true, and above all, by the dramatic form into which it is cast ... What marks a myth as being political is its subject matter ... [P]olitical myths deal with politics ... A political myth is always the myth of a particular group. It has a hero or protagonist, not an individual, but a tribe, a nation, a race, a class ... [and] it is always the group which acts as the protagonist in a political myth.[50]
In 2001, Christopher G. Flood described a working definition of a political myth as
an ideologically marked narrative which purports to give a true account of a set of past, present, or predicted political events and which is accepted as valid in its essentials by a social group.[51]
Tall tale
A tall tale is a story with unbelievable elements, related as if it were true and factual. Some such stories are
Tall tales are often told so as to make the narrator seem to have been a part of the story. They are usually
Urban legend
An urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories that may or may not have been believed by their tellers to be true.[52] As with all folklore and mythology, the designation suggests nothing about the story's veracity, but merely that it is in circulation, exhibits variation over time, and carries some significance that motivates the community in preserving and propagating it.
Despite its name, an urban legend does not necessarily originate in an
Urban legends are sometimes repeated in news stories and, in recent years, distributed by
Some urban legends have passed through the years with only minor changes to suit regional variations. One example is the story of a woman killed by spiders nesting in her elaborate hairdo. More recent legends tend to reflect modern circumstances, like the story of people ambushed, anesthetized, and waking up minus one kidney, which was
Notes
- OED).
- Russian humoranecdote refers to any short humorous story without the need of factual or biographical origins.
- ^ That is to say, specifically located in place and time.
References
- ^ "Eine Anekdote ist eines historisches Element — ein historisches Molekül oder Epigramm": the quote is the epigraph to Gossman 20030
- ^ "Yatsko V. Russian folk funny stories". Archived from the original on 2021-10-19. Retrieved 2012-04-22.
- ISBN 0-521-47735-2
- ^ Encyclopædia Britannica 2009
- ^ a b Womack 2005, p. 81, "Creation myths are symbolic stories describing how the universe and its inhabitants came to be. Creation myths develop through oral traditions and therefore typically have multiple versions."
- ^ a b Kimball 2008[page needed]
- ^ Long 1963, p. 18
- ^ Leeming 2010, pp. xvii–xviii, 465
- ^ See:
- ^ a b Johnston 2009
- ^ See:
- ^ Eliade 1963, p. 429
- ^ See:
- ^ For example, in First Timothy, "neither give heed to fables...", and "refuse profane and old wives' fables..." (1 Tim 1:4 and 4:4, respectively).
- ^
Strong's 3454. μύθος muthos moo'-thos; perhaps from the same as 3453 (through the idea of tuition); a tale, i.e. fiction ("myth"):—fable.
"For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty." (2nd Peter 1:16) - ISBN 978-0007240296. As read on his hit BBC Radio show "Steve Wright in the Afternoon".
- ISBN 978-0-19-861258-2.
- ISBN 0-448-01029-1.
- ^ Pruden, Wesley (January 23, 2007). "Ah, there's joy in Mudville's precincts". The Washington Times. Archived from the original on 2 October 2020. Retrieved 24 February 2012.
- ^ Thompson, Stith. Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology & Legend, 1972 s.v. "Fairy Tale"
- ^ "Merriam-Webster definition of "fairy tale"". Archived from the original on 2008-12-04. Retrieved 2012-04-22.
- ISBN 0-465-04125-6
- ^ Gray, Richard. "Fairy tales have ancient origin." Telegraph.co.uk. 5 September 2009.
- ^ Georges & Jones 1995.
- ^ Georges & Jones 1995, p. 313.
- ^ Norbert Krapf, Beneath the Cherry Sapling: Legends from Franconia (New York: Fordham University Press) 1988, devotes his opening section to distinguishing the genre of legend from other narrative forms, such as fairy tale; he "reiterates the Grimms' definition of legend as a folktale historically grounded", according to Hans Sebald's review in German Studies Review 13.2 (May 1990), p 312.
- ^ Tangherlini, "'It Happened Not Too Far from Here...': A Survey of Legend Theory and Characterization" Western Folklore 49.4 (October 1990:371-390) p. 85.
- ^ Kirk, p. 8; "myth", Encyclopædia Britannica
- ^ Littleton 1973, p. 32.
- ^ Dundes 1984, Introduction, p. 1.
- ^ Dundes 1984, "Binary", p. 45.
- ^ a b Dundes 1984, "Madness", p. 147.
- ^ Bascom 1965, p. 9.
- ^ Eliade 1998, p. 6.
- ^ Doty 2004, pp. 11–12.
- ^ Segal 2015, p. 5.
- ^ Kirk 1984, p. 57.
- ^ Kirk 1973, p. 74.
- ^ Apollodorus 1976, p. 3.
- ^ ISBN 0-85255-007-3, 9780852550076; at page 27 and 28, where Vansina defines oral tradition as "verbal messages which are reported statements from the past beyond the present generation" which "specifies that the message must be oral statements spoken, sung or called out on musical instruments only"; "There must be transmission by word of mouth over at least a generation". He points out that "Our definition is a working definition for the use of historians. Sociologists, linguists or scholars of the verbal arts propose their own, which in, e.g., sociology, stresses common knowledge. In linguistics, features that distinguish the language from common dialogue (linguists), and in the verbal arts features of form and content that define art (folklorists)."
- ISBN 0-85255-091-X, 9780852550915; see Ch. 7; "Oral tradition and its methodology" at pages 54-61; at page 54: "Oral tradition may be defined as being a testimony transmitted verbally from one generation to another. Its special characteristics are that it is verbal and the manner in which it is transmitted."
- ^ a b Henige, David. "Oral, but Oral What? The Nomenclatures of Orality and Their Implications" Oral Tradition, 3/1-2 (1988): 229-38. p 232; Henige cites Jan Vansina (1985). Oral tradition as history. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press
- Degh, Linda. American Folklore and the Mass Media. Bloomington: IUP, 1994, p. 31
- ^ Dundes, Alan, "Editor's Introduction" to The Theory of Oral Composition, John Miles Foley. Bloomington, IUP, 1988, pp. ix-xii
- ^ "Oral History". Archived from the original on 2011-08-20. Retrieved 2012-04-22.
- ^ Ong, Walter, S.J., Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. London: Methuen, 1982 p 12
- ^ Adolf Jülicher, Die Gleichnisreden Jesu (2 vols; Tübingen: Mohr [Siebeck], 1888, 1899).
- ISBN 9780809139620.
- A Marginal Jew, volume II, Doubleday, 1994.
- ISBN 0803283822.
- ISBN 0415936322.
- ^ Brunvand 2012, p. 423.
- ^ Mikkelson, Barbara (2008-03-12). "snopes.com:Kidney Thief". Urban Legends Reference Pages. Retrieved 2010-06-30.
Works cited
- Apollodorus (1976). "Introduction". Gods and Heroes of the Greeks: The Library of Apollodorus. Translated by Simpson, Michael. Amherst: ISBN 978-0-87023-206-0.
- Bascom, William Russell (1965). The Forms of Folklore: Prose Narratives. University of California.
- Brunvand, Jan Harold (2012). Encyclopedia of Urban Legends: Updated and Expanded Edition. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-598847208.
- Doty, William G. (2004). Myth: A Handbook. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-313-32696-7.
- Dundes, Alan, ed. (1984). Sacred Narrative: Readings in the Theory of Myth. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-05192-8.
- ISBN 978-0-529-01915-8.
- — (1998). Myth and Reality. Waveland Press. ISBN 978-1-4786-0861-5.
- "myth". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 2009.
- Georges, Robert A.; Jones, Michael Owens (1995). Folkloristics: An Introduction. Indiana University Press.
- Honko, Lauri (1984). "The Problem of Defining Myth". In ISBN 978-0-520-05192-8.
- Johnston, Susan A. (2009). Religion, Myth, and Magic: The Anthropology of Religion-a Course Guide. ISBN 978-1-4407-2603-3.
- Kimball, Charles (2008). "Creation Myths and Sacred Stories". Comparative Religion. The Teaching Company. ISBN 978-1-59803-452-3.
- Kirk, Geoffrey Stephen (1973). Myth: Its Meaning and Functions in Ancient and Other Cultures. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-02389-5.
- — (1984). "On Defining Myths". In — (ed.). Sacred Narrative: Readings in the Theory of Myth. University of California Press. pp. 53–61. ISBN 978-0-520-05192-8.
- Leeming, David A. (2010). Creation Myths of the World (2nd ed.). ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1-59884-174-9.
- — (2011). "Creation". The Oxford companion to world mythology (online ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195156690. Retrieved 13 October 2011.
- Leonard, Scott A; McClure, Michael (2004). Myth and Knowing (illustrated ed.). McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0-7674-1957-4.
- Littleton, C. Scott (1973). The New Comparative Mythology: An Anthropological Assessment of the Theories of Georges Dumézil. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-02404-5.
- Long, Charles H. (1963). Alpha: The Myths of Creation. New York: George Braziller.
- Segal, Robert (2015). Myth: A Very Short Introduction. OUP Oxford. pp. 19–. ISBN 978-0-19-103769-6.
- Weigle, Marta (1987). "Creation and Procreation, Cosmogony and Childbirth: Reflections on Ex Nihilo Earth Diver, and Emergence Mythology". Journal of American Folklore. 100 (398): 426–435. JSTOR 540902.
- Womack, Mari (2005). Symbols and Meaning: A Concise Introduction. AltaMira Press. ISBN 978-0-7591-0322-1.
External links
- Media related to Traditional stories at Wikimedia Commons