Morphology (folkloristics)
Encyclopedia
Morphology, broadly, is the study of form or structure. Folkloristic
morphology, then, is the study of the structure of folklore and fairy tales.
Folkloristic morphology owes its existence to two seminal researchers and theorists: Russian scholar Vladimir Propp
and Finnish folklorist Antti Aarne
.
Antti Aarne's theories, enlarged and expanded by American folklorist Stith Thompson
in 1961 and by Hans-Jörg Uther in 2004, look at motifs rather than actions – for example, "a soldier makes a deal with the devil" or "a soldier marries the youngest of three sisters." More than 2500 folk and fairy tales have been cataloged under this taxonomy
; the AaTh or Aarne-Thompson
number is as well-known to folklorists as Francis James Child
's identification of ballads
are to scholars of folk songs.
Vladimir Propp
was a Russian structuralist scholar. He criticized Aarne's work for ignoring what motifs did in a tale, and analysed the basic plot, or action, components of Russian folk tales to identify their simplest irreducible narrative elements. His Morphology of the Folk Tale was published in Russian in 1928 and influenced Claude Lévi-Strauss
and Roland Barthes
, though it received little attention from Western scholars until it was translated into English in the 1950s.
In the Afanasyev
's collection of Russian fairy tales, Propp found a limited number of plot elements or "functions" that constructed all. These elements occurred in a standard, consistent sequence. He derived thirty-one generic functions, such as "a difficult task is proposed" or "donor tests the hero" or "a magical agent is directly transferred."
Folkloristics
Folkloristics is the formal academic study of folklore. The term derives from a nineteenth century German designation of folkloristik to distinguish between folklore as the content and folkloristics as its study, much as language is distinguished from linguistics...
morphology, then, is the study of the structure of folklore and fairy tales.
Folkloristic morphology owes its existence to two seminal researchers and theorists: Russian scholar Vladimir Propp
Vladimir Propp
Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp was a Russian and Soviet formalist scholar who analyzed the basic plot components of Russian folk tales to identify their simplest irreducible narrative elements.- Biography :...
and Finnish folklorist Antti Aarne
Antti Aarne
Antti Amatus Aarne was a Finnish folklorist.-Background:Aarne was the student of Julius Krohn and his son Kaarle Krohn...
.
Antti Aarne's theories, enlarged and expanded by American folklorist Stith Thompson
Stith Thompson
Stith Thompson was an American scholar of folklore. He is the "Thompson" of the Aarne-Thompson classification system.- Biography :...
in 1961 and by Hans-Jörg Uther in 2004, look at motifs rather than actions – for example, "a soldier makes a deal with the devil" or "a soldier marries the youngest of three sisters." More than 2500 folk and fairy tales have been cataloged under this taxonomy
Taxonomy
Taxonomy is the science of identifying and naming species, and arranging them into a classification. The field of taxonomy, sometimes referred to as "biological taxonomy", revolves around the description and use of taxonomic units, known as taxa...
; the AaTh or Aarne-Thompson
Aarne-Thompson classification system
The Aarne–Thompson classification system is a system for classifying folktales. First developed by Antti Aarne and published in 1910, it was translated and enlarged by Stith Thompson...
number is as well-known to folklorists as Francis James Child
Francis James Child
Francis James Child was an American scholar, educator, and folklorist, best known today for his collection of folk songs known as the Child Ballads. Child was Boylston professor of rhetoric and oratory at Harvard University, where he produced influential editions of English poetry...
's identification of ballads
Child Ballads
The Child Ballads are a collection of 305 ballads from England and Scotland, and their American variants, collected by Francis James Child in the late nineteenth century...
are to scholars of folk songs.
Vladimir Propp
Vladimir Propp
Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp was a Russian and Soviet formalist scholar who analyzed the basic plot components of Russian folk tales to identify their simplest irreducible narrative elements.- Biography :...
was a Russian structuralist scholar. He criticized Aarne's work for ignoring what motifs did in a tale, and analysed the basic plot, or action, components of Russian folk tales to identify their simplest irreducible narrative elements. His Morphology of the Folk Tale was published in Russian in 1928 and influenced Claude Lévi-Strauss
Claude Lévi-Strauss
Claude Lévi-Strauss was a French anthropologist and ethnologist, and has been called, along with James George Frazer, the "father of modern anthropology"....
and Roland Barthes
Roland Barthes
Roland Gérard Barthes was a French literary theorist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. Barthes' ideas explored a diverse range of fields and he influenced the development of schools of theory including structuralism, semiotics, existentialism, social theory, Marxism, anthropology and...
, though it received little attention from Western scholars until it was translated into English in the 1950s.
In the Afanasyev
Alexander Afanasyev
Alexander Nikolayevich Afanasyev was a Russian folklorist who recorded and published over 600 Russian folktales and fairytales, by far the largest folktale collection by any one man in the world...
's collection of Russian fairy tales, Propp found a limited number of plot elements or "functions" that constructed all. These elements occurred in a standard, consistent sequence. He derived thirty-one generic functions, such as "a difficult task is proposed" or "donor tests the hero" or "a magical agent is directly transferred."
See also
- Historic-geographic method
- The Thirty-Six Dramatic SituationsThe Thirty-Six Dramatic SituationsThe Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations is a descriptive list which was created by Georges Polti to categorize every dramatic situation that might occur in a story or performance. To do this Polti analyzed classical Greek texts, plus classical and contemporaneous French works. He also analyzed a handful...
- Marian Roalfe CoxMarian Roalfe CoxMarian Roalfe Cox was an English folklorist who pioneered studies in Morphology for the fairy tale Cinderella.In 1893, after being commissioned by the Folklore Society of Britain, she produced Cinderella: Three Hundred and Forty-Five Variants of Cinderella, Catskin and, Cap O' Rushes, Abstracted...