Midterm

Question 1

Cultural stuff

Answer 1

Customs, stories, jokes, art, what we learn from each other by word of mouth or by observation

Question 2

How is folklore informal?

Answer 2

We learn about it through word of mouth or by observation instead of through formal institutions like school, church, media. Folklore is free to evolve, adapts and adjust to different tellers and audiences

Question 3

What is ‘Folk culture’?

Answer 3

Informal or unofficial parts of culture, folk stories, customs, drawings on walls

Question 4

What does traditional mean?

Answer 4

Passed on, over generations or a few days, resulting in the same expressive form cropping up in multiple places

Question 5

Who are the ‘Folk’?

Answer 5

‘Other’ people like rural peasants, ethnic and religious minorities. A group of people who share at least one common factors. Can be a nation of people or a 2 person couple who share inside jokes.

Question 6

What is ‘Lore’?

Answer 6

Lore gives form to folklore, folk is who, lore is what. It is specific expressive forms that a group uses to communicate and interact. It has dynamic variation.

Question 7

How is elite culture transmitted?

Answer 7

transmitted through specific cultural institutions catering to educated (and usually very privileged) people: museums, opera, art-house/independent film studios, “literary fiction

Question 8

How is popular culture transmitted?

Answer 8

transmitted through mass media and entertainment corporations: television, mainstream news media, genre publishing, pop music…

Question 9

How is folk culture transmitted?

Answer 9

transmitted PERSON TO PERSON through direct conversation, email, observation, telephone, chat rooms, etc: grafitti, rumor, e-mail forwards, children’s rhymes, jokes…

Question 10

What is the three differences between elite and popular culture versus folk culture?

Answer 10

Elite and popular culture use folk culture, get a stable text so words of a novel do not change, transmitted through a singular source so a million people might all watch the same show and all get it from the same source so the version they all get is identical.

Question 11

Folklore is traditional and variable. What does this mean?

Answer 11

Tradition means passed on so if it has not travelled then it is not folklore.

Variable” means “changeable”: those multiple versions are dynamic and variable, with details changing to fit new contexts and new tellers, so that there’s no single right version.

Question 12

Folklore is informal. What does this mean?

Answer 12

MULTIPLE VERSIONS emanating from MULTIPLE SOURCES: “folk” implies a folk GROUP, which means MULTIPLE PEOPLE

Question 13

Describe memes in relation to folklore.

Answer 13

Memes are folklore. They are traditional and get passed around. They are variable because they get modified by different folk groups and communities. Memes get combined with other memes.

Question 14

What are two ways that we organize stories

Answer 14

Into content and context

Question 15

What is content

Answer 15

What a story contains (duh); it’s how we categorize most literary/film/tv genres. In folklore we go by context not content.

Question 16

Define myth

Answer 16

Sacred narrative or story. Big questions about the essential nature of the universe

Question 17

Define legend

Answer 17

Folk history. Told to be believable

Question 18

Define folktale

Answer 18

Folk narratives understood as fiction and told for entertainment. Can use myths and legends. Fairytales are folktales with magical elements

Question 19

Define fairytales

Answer 19

Magic and supernatural are treated as a matter of course and as normal.

Question 20

Define savagery

Answer 20

Primeval state of humanity, animistic, hunter-gatherers, matriarchal, wear very few clothes

Question 21

Define barbarism

Answer 21

More advances, agricultural/pastoral, beginnings of urbanization’s, polytheistic

Question 22

Define civilization

Answer 22

Settled urbanism, writing language, monotheistic, patriarchal

Question 23

What does ATU stand for

Answer 23

Aarne-Thompson Uther

Question 24

How did Aarne classify folktales and what do they help us do?

Answer 24

He looked at a gazillion folktales and classified them by plot line which he called tale types. These help us to track stories across many different cultures.

Question 25

What did Thompson and Uther do in relation to tale types

Answer 25

Thompson created the Motif-index to folk literatures, this index catalogues every motif, Uther revised and expanded further what we now call the ATU system.

Question 26

Define motif

Answer 26

A story element. The building blocks of tale types

Question 27

What are the categories of the tale types.

Answer 27

``` Animal tales (ATU 1-299) Ordinary folktales (ATU 300-1199) Jokes and Anecdotes (ATU 1200-1999) Formula Tales (ATU 2000-2399) Unclassified Tales (ATU 2400-2499) ``` ``` Alexa Only Just Feeds Unicorns ```

Question 28

Why should we use the ATU system?

Answer 28

We can see how similar storie pop in different cultures and can track stories. What elements are crucial to the plot of a story. What elements of the stories are variable.

Question 29

Define tale type

Answer 29

The plot line of a story, a string of motifs.

Question 30

What are the three different versions of little red riding hood story.

Answer 30

Grimms: woodcutter sets her free Perrault: everyone dies French Folk version: red riding hood says she has to go to the bathroom outside and runs away to escape.

Question 31

When were the first edition and the last edition of the grimms stories released.

Answer 31

First edition was in 1812, seventh and final edition was in 1857

Question 32

The story of the golden donkey by apalius was what?

Answer 32

The primary story used to determine the tale type of beauty and the beast.

Question 33

What were two major figures in Russian fairy tales?

Answer 33

Baba Yaga and Koshe.

Question 34

Describe Baba Yaga

Answer 34

Baba yaga: witch, old timey powerful figure who pops up in a billion Russian fairytale. Sometimes classic western fairytale witch who is evil and gets kills or she can also be a good witch and be helpful. Historians believe that she was a death figure but she is ambiguous because she she can also sometimes be helpful.

Question 35

Describe Koshe

Answer 35

Koshe: a death figure, ultimate model of toxic patriarchy. Kind of a wizard figure. Related to some kind of pre-Christian death figure or deity. Clearly has an existence outside of the fairytale context.

Question 36

How is folklore different from official culture?

Answer 36

Official culture has a stable text and is all coming from one source Versus folklore were there are multiple sources and unofficial, not comericial published, unstable text

Question 37

Define Romantic nationalism

Answer 37

Romantic nationalism is the form of nationalism in which the state derives its political legitimacy as an organic consequence of the unity of those it governs. the celebration of the nation (defined by its language, history, and cultural character) as an inspiring ideal for artistic expression; and the instrumentalization of that expression in ways of raising the political consciousness.

Question 38

How does folklore connect to romantic nationalism

Answer 38

People started to collect folklore to assert their nationalism. Folklore fosters a sense of cultural unity

Question 39

What is salon culture and what impacts did it have on folklore?

Answer 39

Salons were gatherings of artists and philosophers where they would come to discuss those things and their ideas and stories. Many greater folklorists, especially some women ones, came out of these salons.

Question 40

What did Vladimir Propp argue

Answer 40

That all fairytales and their characters follow the same kind of structure. And that the characters only matter with the kind of role they play. Villian or not.