Children’s Literature in Great Britain

2^nd Year

Seminar 5

Traditional Folk Tale

1. The origin of the fairy-tale, its importance for the child’s development.

2. The specific character of the British fairy-tale.

3. The problems of classifying folk tales.

4. The morphology of the fairy-tale.

Tasks:

1. Be ready to comment on W.H. Auden’s words about the importance of the fairy-tales.

2. Read the fairy-tale “The Black Bull of Norroway”. Be ready with the analysis of the functions of its characters.

Literature:

1. Cальникова, Е.Г. Children’s Literature of the world / Е.Г. Сальникова, М.А. Сыч. – Брест, 2008.

2. Jacobs, J.S. Children’s literature, briefly / J.S. Jacobs, M.O. Tunnell. – Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1996.

3. Bettelheim B. The meaning and importance of fairy tales / Great Fantasy Stories, p. 62-64.

Classification of Folktales

Folktale is an inclusive term, referring to all kinds of narrative that has its origin in the oral tradition. The very roots of folk literature trace themselves to the stories that were part of the myths and legends, folktales and fairy tales that were shared among ancient peoples. Groups would gather in caves, castles, cottages, temples, and dwellings to hear storytellers spin their yarns, some of which are as popular with children today as they were so long ago.

Folktales have their origin in the oral tradition. Part of the popularity of these traditional stories with children is that they deal with universal human themes - good and evil, cruelty and kindness, honesty and deceit, life and death. Virtue is always rewarded; wickedness is always punished. Cinderella lives happily ever after, as it happens in other national versions of the rejected-and-impoverished-girl-meets-and-marries-prince story.

The fact that folktales deal with human themes accounts for the universality of these stories. Some classic European folktales such as The Elves and the Shoemaker and Hansel and Gretel have their equivalent African, Near Eastern, Far Eastern, and American Indian versions, with each version reflecting the unique flavor of the culture from which it comes. Literature provides a human link between peoples of different cultures.

The first comprehensive compendium of European folktales was recorded by the brothers Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm. Ironically, the Grimms' primary intent was not to entertain; they were linguistic scholars who recorded the stories for the purpose of analyzing the language used to tell the tales. The Grimms' work, however, has left a literary rather than a linguistic legacy, though the brothers did make their impact in linguistics as well.

Quite rightly, all traditional stories could be called folktales or stories of the people. We will use this heading to encompass a number of stories that are the most general or universal in nature. The most common kinds of folktales are:

• Cumulative tales. These stories are "added upon" as the telling unfolds. Typically the story is told up to a certain point, then begun again from near the beginning and told until a new segment is added. Then the teller starts again and again, each time adding a new wrinkle to the story, expanding a chain of events or a list of participants. Probably the best known example is the reasonably simple cumulative tale "The House That Jack Built."

• Pourquoi tales. Pourquoi means "why" in French. These folktales answer ques­tions or give explanations for the way things are, particularly in nature. Exam­ples are "Why the Bear Is Stumpy-Tailed" or Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears (1975).

• Beast tales. Their distinction is simple: Beast tales are stories with animals as the principal players. The animals typically represent humans and are therefore anthropomorphized, such as animals in "The Three Little Pigs" and "The Three Billy Goats Gruff."

• Noodlehead, or numbskull, tales. These humorous stories center on the escapades of characters who are not too bright. Sometimes they really make a mess of things with their incredibly stupid mistakes, as in the story "Epaminondas" in which a silly boy nearly destroys a number of items placed in his charge because he follows the wrong instructions for their care. For example, he is told to wrap butter in leaves and dip it in cool water to keep it in good shape. But then he uses those instructions with a puppy.

• Trickster tales. Often a variety of beast tale, the trickster tale features a character who outsmarts everyone else in the story. Sometimes the trickster is sly and mischievous (Brother Rabbit from the Uncle Remus stories).

• Realistic tales. Realistic tales seem to have their basis in an actual historical event or to feature an actual figure from history. These folktales have few, if any, elements of fantasy. "Dick Whittington and His Cat," a story with a main character who is supposed to have later become the mayor of London, is an example.

• Fairy tales. Of all the folktales, the fairy tale, or wonder tale, is the most magical. In fairy tales we see enchantments that go beyond talking animals to fairy godmothers, wicked witches, magical objects (mirrors, cloaks, swords, rings), and the like. (See chapter 8 for a discussion of fantasy motifs.) Fairy tales are extremely popular with young listeners and readers. "Snow White," "Cin­derella," "Sleeping Beauty," "Beauty and the Beast," and "Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp" are but a few examples of well-known fairy tales.

Tall Tales

Exaggeration is the major stylistic element in tall tales. Many tall tales grew out of the push to open the North American continent to settlement. Tall-tale characters, such as Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, Johnny Appleseed, John Henry, and Old Stormalong, either were based on actual people or on a composite of rough-and-tumble lumberjacks, sailors, or cowboys. Tall tales, of course, exist beyond our American culture. For instance, the Chinese tale, "The Seven [or Five] Chinese Brothers," tells of several brothers who use amazing talents, such as the ability to swallow an entire sea, to ward off the conquests of an evil emperor.

Fables

Fables are brief stories in which most often animals behave like humans. They are meant to teach a lesson, and usually conclude with a moral such as "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" or "Haste makes waste." Besides the well-known collection of Aesop's fables from Greece, there are fables from India and from Persia, plus a collection of fables by French poet Jean de La Fontaine. Fables also existed in ancient Egyptian culture.

Myths

Myths grew out of early people's need to understand and explain the world around them and their own existence, and therefore they recount the creation and tell of the gods and goddesses who control the fate of humans. Many myths are similar to pourquoi folktales because they explain nature. For example, the Greek myth of Apollo explains how and why the sun travels across the sky each day. Every culture has its myths, although the Greek myths are perhaps the best known in the Western world.

One variety of myth focuses on the heroic quest rather than upon the mysteries of planet Earth. The hero myth, such as the story "Jason and the Argonauts," is a grand adventure that usually involves the intervention of heavenly beings. The hero myth is related to the epic.

Legends

Legends are historical tales handed from generation to generation, first by word of mouth and later in written form. Related to myths, legends involve larger-than-life figures – sometimes supernatural beings – who perform heroic deeds in keeping with the traditions of the cultures from which the legends come. The Arthurian legends, for example, which chronicle the great deeds of King Arthur and his knights, still capture the imagination of children as they are retold in books such as T. H. White's The Sword in the Stone and Margaret Hodges's The Kitchen Knight: A Tale of King Arthur.