Traditional Literature

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Traditional Literature

• ELE 300

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Traditional Literature.

• includes ancient stories and poems preserved
  through time by oral tradition of storytelling
  before eventually being written down
• has no known authors
• is attributed to entire groups of people or
  cultures
• may have originally held elements of truth

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Historically...

• Monogenesis vs. polygenesis
• Aesops Fables, 1484
• Tales of Mother Goose, 1697

• Grimms Nursery and Household Tales, 1812
• Charles Perrault France
• Joseph Jacobs English Fairy Tales
• The Arabian Knights

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Story features....

• Characterization
• Plot
• Theme
• Setting
• Repeated Elements

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Folktales

• Stories that grew out of the lives and
  imaginations of the people
• Common characteristic is their universality.

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Categories of Traditional Literature

• Folktales
• Cumulative Tales
• Pouquoi Tales
• Beast Tales
• Trickster Tales
• Noodlehead Tales
• Realistic Tales
• Fairy or Wonder Tales

• Traditional Fantasy
• Tall Tales and Legends
• Fables
• Myths
• Epics
• Religious Stories

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Legends and Tall Tales

• Legends stories based on real or supposedly real
  individuals and their deeds.
• Tall tales are highly exaggerated accounts of the
  exploits of persons.

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Fables

• A simple story that incorporates
  characters-typically animals-whose actions teach
  a moral lesson or universal truth.
• Aesops are best known.

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Myths

• Stories that recount and explain the origins of
  the world and the phenomena of nature
• Creation stories
• Gods and goddesses
• High above the earth
• Greek, Roman, Norse

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Epics

• Long stories of human adventure recounted in many
  episodes.
• Human and divine characters
• Hero always human or superhuman
• Setting is earthly

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Religious Stories

• Stories abased on religious writings or taken
  intact from religious manuscripts.
• Parables