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8 Cards in this Set

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Fairy Tale

1) A literal translation of conte de fée, from Madame D’Aulnoy’s 1697 book of fairy tales, LesContes des Fées. It is worth noting that fairy tales only occasionally involve actual fairies.




2) In the broadest sense of the term, “fairy tales” are (generally short) stories—ranging from oralfolk tales to original literary works—containing fantastic elements and/or taking place infantastic landscapes.




4) Fairy tales, even purely literary ones, frequently retain many of the attributes of the folk talesthat gave rise to them.

Folk Tale

1) A story “of the folk”: a tale told of the people, by the people.




2) A story originally passed on orally from storyteller to storyteller (though it may eventually bewritten down); its ultimate origins will inevitably be unknown.




3) “Folk tales” do not necessarily belong to specific genres. A “fairy tale” (a tale ofenchantment) is one genre of “folk tale” (a tale of the people). Conversely, not all “fairy tales”are also “folk tales”; some are original creations of literary authors. This will all become muchless confusing later in the term.

Three Theories of Folk-Tale Dissemination

1) The “Common Source” Theory: Long ago, back at the Dawn of Humanity, people told eachother stories, then separated and migrated to many distant lands. The stories went with them.




2) The “Merchant” Theory: Thesepeople spread stories as well as goods and services. Merchants, who travel from country tocountry—or even continent to continent—rather than simply village to village, spread storieseven further.




3) The “Simultaneous Evolution” Theory: Deep down, people are really all just the same, even if they do come from radically different cultures and ways of life.

Medium, Form, Genre

1) Medium: The means by which a creator presents a work (e.g., the written word, the spokenword, film).




2) Form: The particular shape a work in a certain medium tales (e.g., short story, folk tale,feature film).




3) Genre: The class to which a certain work belongs within its form (e.g., fantasy, sciencefiction, mystery).

Folk-Tale Classification Systems

1) The Aarne-Thompson Tale-Type Index (started by Antti Aarne; translated and expanded byStith Thompson). This index, eventually published in one volume as The Types of the Folktale(1961), organises world folk tales by tale-type number.




2) Stith Thompson’s six-volume Motif-Index of Folk Literature (1955-1958). It goes The Typesof the Folktale one better by listing the “motifs” (i.e., recurring elements) found within stories.This site explains the concept in a bit more detail: http://www.folklore.bc.ca/Motifindex.htm.

Mnemonic

1) Definition: of or designed to aid the memory (Concise Oxford).




2) Folk tales contain many mnemonic details such as repetition and formulaic phrases,characters, and settings.

The Rule of Three

1) Definition: A principle of storytelling indicating that elements grouped in threes are morenarratively satisfying than those grouped in other ways. The grouping also allows a writer orstoryteller to build up and release narrative tension.




2) The Rule of Three is important to folk tales but also to many literary works and films.

The “Evolution” of the Fairy Tale


Key Issues

1) The movement from oral to literary format.




2) The movement “up the classes,” from the peasantry to the middle and leisure classes; the roleof the Industrial Revolution in this shift.




3) The movement from delight to instruction (i.e., from entertainment to teaching tool).




4) The role of the collectors: Perrault, Brothers Grimm, Jacobs.




5) The shift from “retelling” to “creating.”




6) Frozen story, idealised setting: the shift in the meaning of “Once upon a time.”




7) The role of originality.