FOLKLORE

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UNIT 5

• FOLKLORE

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FOLKLORE IN CHILDRENS LIVES

• Roots exist in all societies - from all times.
• Continual quest to shape harmonious balance tween
  physical world and our place in it.
• Explained world to early people.
• Helps kids understand world today.
• Children search for meaning provides order and
  consistency.
• Pleasure comes in mastery.

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FOLKLORE IN CHILDRENS LIVES

• Roots exist in all societies - from all times.
• Continual quest to shape harmonious balance tween
  physical world and our place in it.
• Explained world to early people.
• Helps kids understand world today.
• Children search for meaning provides order and
  consistency.
• Pleasure comes in mastery.

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• Freud
• Fairy tale characters symbolize subconscious
  urges of childs emotional development
• Bettelheim
• Fairy tales tap unconscious wishes and desires --
  repressed emotions.
• Allows child to deal with emotional insecurities
• Jung
• Universal nature of the unconscious.
• Similar elements found in myths, legends, folk
  tales.
• Reappearing themes or archetypes process of
  maturing

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FOLKLORE SOURCES

• North, South Central America
• Europe, Africa Middle East
• Western Asia
• Australia

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ARCHETYPES IN FOLKLORE

• Images, plot patterns or character types.
• Heros Quest
• Fairy Godmother
• Wicked Witch/Wicked Stepmother
• Benevolent Crone
• Shadow/Evil Underside of Human Nature/Goof Vs.
  Evil

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CRITERIA FOR EVALUATING FOLKLORE

• Authenticity symbols, imagery vocabulary
• Language
• sounds natural (authentic dialogue)
• maintains cultural richness
• structured to quickly involve reader
• Illustrations
• complement and extend narrative
• enrich details
• artistically excellent

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EVALUATION ANALYSIS

• Synopsis
• Structure -- setting quickly
• stereotyped characters
• Language
• repetition -- events, dialogue
• Illustration
• culture comes through
• text pictures work together

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TYPES OF FOLKLORE

• Mother Goose Nursery Tales
• Folktales
• Fables
• Mythology
• Hero Tales
• Bible as Literature

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Mother Goose Nursery Tales

• 1697 -- Charles Perrault -- France
• Characteristics
• rhythm/strong beat
• imaginative use of words ideas
• compact structure
• wit and whimsy of characters -- nonsense/humor

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Folktales

• One belief -- all emerged from one prehistoric
  civilization-- Grimm brothers
• Originated in number of places.
• Characteristics
• Narratives -- heroes heroines
• Character stereotyping
• Themes -- value of culture
• Language -- direct, vivid
• Setting -- vague, worlds in themselves

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Types of Folktales

• Fairy Tales -- magic, wee people, fairy
  godmothers
• Talking Beast Tales
• Noodlehead Tales
• Cumulative Tales
• Patterns
• Conventions -- Once upon a time. . . .
• Motifs -- symbol, image, device -- stereotyped
  characters magic objects/spells/trickery
• Themes -- struggle good/evil courage, gallantry,
  sacrifice
• Variants -- Cinderella

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Fables

• Brief tale told to point out a moral.
• Explicitly stated moral.
• Taught by allegory -- animals or inanimate
  objects represent human traits
• Greece -- Aesop slave
• India -- Panchatantra -- Buddha's prior lives
• Hard for younger children to understand

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Variants of Folktales

• Jack Tales
• Two Sisters
• Beauty and the Beast
• Three Little Pigs
• Cinderella
• Red Riding Hood
• Frog Prince

• Rumpelstiltskin
• Goldilocks the Three Bears
• Baba Yaga
• Snow White the Seven Dwarfs
• Hansel Gretel
• Juan Bobo

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Mythology

• Stories with roots in primitive folk beliefs.
• Interpret natural events -- to explain and
  control natural phenomena
• Native American, Aboriginal, Chinese, African,
  Aztec Greek/Roman, Norse, African
• Sizable part of literary cultural heritage
• Stories relate to each other
• Origin of earth, seasons, fire, water stories of
  love, carnage, revenge mystery
• Simplest -- pourquoi -- why tales -- explain
  customs and natural phenomena

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Hero Tales

• Recount courageous deeds of mortals as struggle
  against each other or against gods and monsters.
• King Arthur Robin Hood Trojan War Iliad and
  Odyssey
• Epics -- sometimes written in verse -- cycle of
  tales
• Davy Crockett, Johnny Appleseed, Daniel Boone
• John Henry, Pecos Bill, Mike Fink - mythic men
• Exaggerated humor-Paul Bunyan

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Folksongs Work Songs

• Ballads -- inform persuade foster agreement,
  unify people.
• Diversion from boring work -- rhythm spirit of
  labor
• Railroads, tunnels, canals, ships.
• Sing for self-gratification

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Bible as Literature

• Different -- teach religious doctrine and use to
  explore literary content.
• Character presented?
• Period Portrayed?
• Lyric poems.
• Contains myths, legends, fables, parables, short
  stories, essays, lyrics, epistles, sermons,
  orations, proverbs, history, biography, prophecy
  and drama.

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FOLKLORE IN THE CLASSROOM

• Traditional literature foundation for future
  literary understanding.
• Modern references to folklore are countless.
• Pandoras Box, Midas touch, wolf in sheeps
  clothing.
• Learn to recognize motifs, themes, story
  conventions
• Discover recurring patterns, sense of story,
  archetypes
• Learn values, hopes, fears beliefs of culture
  -- bridge of understanding.