Midterm Study Guide SP 2025 (1).docx

**Indo-European Folktales - Study Guide Spring 2025 -- Midterm** **What to know** Know background information such as historical and social explanations for figures and phenomena in all tales discussed in lecture (for example, what background information do you know about Vampires? What historical...

**Indo-European Folktales - Study Guide Spring 2025 -- Midterm** **What to know** Know background information such as historical and social explanations for figures and phenomena in all tales discussed in lecture (for example, what background information do you know about Vampires? What historical reality might such figures reflect?). Know interpreters and interpretations of tales as discussed in lecture (for example, what are some of the various interpretations of the "Young Giants" tales?). Be familiar with the recitation readings from folklore scholarship \-- know the main arguments associated with each scholar/critic. There *at least* one question for each of these assigned readings. For all tales and films discussed in lecture, know the titles and major plot details, the similarities and differences between tales that share common features (for example, what are the differences between the "Town and Country/Field Mouse" tales? How are their given morals similar/different?). **Genres (know definitions & characteristics)** - Folktale vs Folklore - Fairy Tale - Legend - Urban Legend - Myth - Fable - Problem w/ explicitly stated morals - Animals as protagonists - Collections & Authors - Aesop - Panchatantra - Jataka Tales - Jean de La Fontaine **Terms and Tale Figures** - Indo-European / Proto Indo European - Functions of folklore (what are they for) - Traditions (curses, spinning) - Folk culture, popular culture, high culture - Fairy / demon - Witch (familiar) - Vampire - Functions**,** dramatis personae (Propp) - Motif and tale type (ATU Index) - Polygenesis / monogenesis - Solar Mythology - Patriarchy, agency - Animism - Abstract style - El Khudr / St. George (names & cultural contexts) - Frau Holle (spinning/work, origins in Pre-Christian mythology) - Wod, the Huntsman (origins in Pre-Christian mythology) - Buddha - Proletariat / bourgeoisie (Marxist lens) **Scholarship (lecture)** - **Collectors/Editors (Authors) of Folklore before the Grimms** - Giambattista Basile - Giovanni Francesco Straparola - Charles Perrault - Thomas Percy, James Macpherson - Aleksandr Afanasyev - Wilhelm & Jakob Grimm - Dorothea Viehmann **Four Schools of Folklore Inquiry** **1) Origin** - Brothers Grimm - Beginnings of folktale scholarship - Their goals (patriotic/nationalistic, deeper German identity in folklore) - versions of *Children's and Household tales (KHM),* 1812/1815  - Dorothea Viehmann - Contributions and legacy - Foreword to the Kinder und Hausmärchen (KHM) - Friedrich Max Müller: sanskrit scholar, solar mythology, all tales come from a Proto-Indo-European culture (monogenesis) - Theodor Benfey: origin of all tales in Indian (monogenesis) - Aarne and Thompson (Uther) - AT(U) Index - Motif - Tale type **2) Form** - Formalism (V. Propp) - Morphology (function, dramatis personae) - Structuralism (Claude Lévi-Strauss) - Binary oppositions **3) Style** - Grimm Brothers / Herder - Volkspoesie vs Kunstpoesie - Max Lüthi - One dimensionality, depthlessness, Abstraction, isolation & universal connectedness - Features of Abstract Style **4) Meaning - Critical Analysis:** - Ethno-Psychology (Wilhelm Wundt) - Problems w/ approach - Psychoanalysis - - Psycho-sexual development stages - Oedipal complex, family structure - - - - - - - - - Inverted projection (incest wish) - Marxist Literary Criticism - Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels - Communist Manifesto (1848) - Link between fairy tales and capitalism - fairy tales collected during the transition from feudalism to Industrial Capitalism in the 18^th^ (France) and 19^th^ Centuries (Germany) - Disney and Capitalism - Proletariat / bourgeoisie - critique of economic exploitation and capitalist systems **Tales / Film** - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Similar tales, different locations (explanations) - Themes: family, home, nation (messages communicated) - Compare/contrast similar tales - - Morals of tales do not match content - Didactic -- seek to teach (fables) - Regional differences/similarities of tales - - - - - - - - - - - - - Differences between Andrew Lang (newer) and Joseph Jacobs (older) versions - Coming of Age - Construction of ideal masculinity (Lang) - Moral messages vs amoral, generic quality - Marxist reading - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - **Disney Adaptations** - Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks, - Laugh O' Grams - Formula for transforming Fairy-Tales into Films - Moral system (clear good/evil binary) - Genre (Broadway Musical) - Technology (innovation and as a subject in the films) - Characterization, (family structures, 19^th^ century melodrama, animals, gags) - Americanization  - Snow White - differences between Grimms' "Little Snow White" and Disney film - Changes with significant impact on moral (emphasis on domestication, dwarves, prince appearing at beginning) - Significance of storybook, animals - Snow White's aspirations & agency - Wicked Stepmother - Dwarves (children/old men, misogyny, hard-working American working class) - Prince - Marxist & feminist interpretations **Recitation Articles (+ answers to recitation questions & application tasks)** - - - - - - - **\*Please note that items on the above list will only be present on the exam if we have covered them in lecture or recitation.** I expect that we will cover Jack & the Beanstalk, Cinderella Tales, Incest Tales, and the Psychoanalytic approach, and Maria Tatar's article from 2/17-2/21. If that does not happen, anything that is not covered will not appear on the exam.