Interpreting Folklore

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Indiana University Press, 1980 - Social Science - 304 pages
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..". Dundes has produced a work which will be useful to both students and teachers who wish to broaden their understanding of modern folklore." -- Center for Southern Folklore Magazine "It is impossible ever to remain unimpressed with [Dundes'] excursuses, however much one may be in disagreement (or not) with his conclusions." -- Forum for Modern Language Studies Often controversial, Alan Dundes's scholarship is always provocative, perceptive, and intelligent. His concern here is to assess the material folklorists have so painstakingly amassed and classified, to interpret folklore, and to use folklore to increase our understanding of human nature and culture.

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Page 23
12 To attempt this is to commit what I would term “ the linguistic fallacy , ” that is , to reduce the analysis of folklore to the analysis of language . One of the most obvious theoretical weaknesses of such an approach is the fact ...
Page 32
This is exactly parallel to the structural analysis of text . In the case of folktale structure , for example , emic slots in texts can be filled by different etic units , that is , different motifs ( allomotifs ) may be used in a given ...
Page 56
For example , one of the finest examples , in my opinion , of semiotic analysis is Paul Bouissac's insightful descriptions of various circus acts . In his essay “ Poetics in the Lion's Den : The Circus Act as a Text , ” Bouissac ...

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Contents

The Curious Case of the Widemouth Frog
62
A Folkloristic Reflection of
69
Seeing Is Believing
86
Copyright

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Alan Dundes
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Alan Dundes
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Common terms and phrases

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About the author (1980)

Anthropologist and folklorist Alan Dundes was born in 1934 in New York City. He received his BA in English in 1955 and his MAT in English in 1958, both from Yale University. He received his Ph.D in Folklore from Indiana University in 1962 and in 1963 he joined the teaching staff at the University of California, Berkley. He wrote over 250 journal articles and12 books and co-wrote more than 20 other books. In 1993, he became the first American to win the Pitre Prize's Sigillo d'Oro, which is an international life-time achievement award in folklore and ethnography. He died of a heart attack on March 30, 2004 at the age of 70.

Bibliographic information

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TitleInterpreting Folklore
AuthorAlan Dundes
Edition2, illustrated, reprint
PublisherIndiana University Press, 1980
Original fromthe University of California
Digitized22 Jul 2008
ISBN0253143071, 9780253143075
Length304 pages
Subjects › 

Social Science / Folklore & Mythology
  
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