MEG - 16 Block-1 Folk Literature and Language : Research and Pedagogy Note for Unit 1-4

 MEG16 Block-1

Block-1 Folk Literature and Language : Research and Pedagogy

Unit-1 - An Introduction to Folklore

Grimm brothers

Folk is synonymous with a people or a way of life. The great proportion of the members of a people that determines the group character and that tends to preserve its characteristic form of civilization and its customs, arts and crafts, legends, traditions, and superstitions from generation to generation.

“The term folk can refer to any group of people whatsoever who share at least one common factor.

1. It can belong to people of similar race, gender, religion or occupation.

2. It can cut across geographical boundaries and have close human to human interaction.

3. It can also be shaped by technology and modern society.

4. It is not necessary that all the folk members should know one another

5. They can be distant and not connected in any manner. 

6. Folk does not necessarily imply rural or lower class. There can be a strong urban literate folk.

7. It is not only verbal, artists have communicated their thoughts through their artistic creations such as theatre, dance or paintings.

8. Folklore often has an inherent inconsistency in it but it maintains set and standard cultural values.

9. Folklore can be global or local, national or international, personal or public.

10. Authorship is anonymous.

Until about 4000 BC, all literature was basically folk literature due to their orality. Writing developed in the years between 4000 and 3000 BC.

Folk constitutes of group of persons that have some common features which allow for cohesion. A group can be large or small, or in other words primary or secondary. 

This can be differentiated on the basis of some criteria that include size, purpose, duration, patterns of communication, type of social control and the amount of involvement of the individual in the group.

 Typically, a primary group can be small and the interaction between community members are face to face and often direct. By contrast a secondary group is larger and may be long lasting.

Experts have defined folk in several ways: 

• 1) Folklore is deeply connected to the nation.

•  2) It is said to belong to the lower levels of the social hierarchy. 

• 3) It is said to be old fashioned as compared to the complexities of modern civilization.

•  4) It is believed that it belongs to large societies with a large population.

•  5) Folk is said to be a social group connected through a common tradition and a particular feeling of communication.

Philology is the study of the historical development of languages. Philological enquiries mostly sought for the root or origin of languages and etymologies of different words in a language. 

In 19th century Germany, it was Jacob Grimm (1785 – 1863) who emerged to be the most prominent activist in this field, who extensively collected German folklore materials for the purpose of his study of the roots of German language.

It was the British antiquarian William John Thoms who coined the word ‘folklore’ in 1846. Prior to that, materials of folklore, in English, were referred to randomly as ‘popular antiquities’ or ‘popular literature’.

the singular word ‘folklore’ should be used in English to denote the “the manners, customs, observances, superstitions, ballads, proverbs” WJ. THOMS argued that the word ‘folklore’, being the composite of ‘folk’ (people) and ‘lore’ (knowledge), would be a good AngloSaxon compound.  His letter was published in August of 1846 and his proposal was soon accepted widely.

 DIFFERENT ACADEMIC APPROACHES

1- Mythological School

phenomenon of myth-creation as the result of the semantic changes in language. He used the phrase “malady of language” (disease of language) to mean this change in language – which is a phenomenon where words and terms used by the primitive men at a particular stage of one language lose their original meanings at a later phase of the language and at the hands of later generations. Myths are created, as the explanatory narratives of such words and expressions by the later generations.

2- Diffusion/Migration Theory

Theodor Benfey (1809 – 1881) , created sanskrit to english dictionary and translated panchatantra to German showing the similarities of European and Indian Folklore.  He believed that it was ancient India where all the folktales were originally produced, which later ‘migrated’ to Europe and other parts of the world.

3- Anthropological Perspectives

similarities between cultural traits and practices amongst communities living in different geographical locations through the new concept of anthropological evolution of mankind. a cultural trait or an item of folklore could have independently originated at two or more places unrelated to each other, either at the same time or at different times, but at similar stages of human progress. It was believed that evolution of mankind followed a singular universal path of progress everywhere, with three absolutely identical stages – savagery, barbarism and civilization.

4- Historical-Geographical School

Theodor Benfey’s hypothesis was based on the notion that as folk forms travel from place to place, they undergo changes in form and content, yet retaining their basic recognizable features. Thus it was believed that not only the original forms of folklore items could be reconstructed but the exact route of migration of those items also could be traced through comparative exercise. It was known as Finnish Method or Historical-Geographical Method because of its research along historical (original form) and geographical (route of migration) scales

5- Psychoanalytical School

Freud drew analogies between dreams and myths that dreams are the disguised reflection of the repressed desires of an individual in his or her subconscious mind whereas the myths are the symbolic expressions of the collective unconsciousness of a race or culture. 

6- Oral-Formulaic Theory

the form of oral poetry and to compare it with the form of written verses. Found that the “epic singers memorize a set of formulas which enable them to carry on the traditional themes with reasonable accuracy and at the same time give them freedom to improvise new elements depending on the occasion without altering the form drastically

7- Structural School

Structuralism is an approach in which any field or object of study is treated as a system of interrelated parts.

 Regarding the issue of the similarities of folktales of different places, Vladimir was interested neither in finding the origin of these similarities nor in random comparison and classification of the similar traits of tales. He showed that the vital components of a folktale are not its characters but certain actions of the characters, which are found to be constant in folktales of different places. The presence of such constant actions, which he called functions, are responsible for the similarities between different folktales.

8- Contextual Theory

folklore items within multi-dimensional frameworks. In this new enlightened approach, the items of folklore began to be seen not merely as texts but as events, where the contexts of folk performances (like story-telling, singing, rituals and festivals, and conversations) were regarded as important as the texts.

GROWTH OF FOLKLORE STUDIES IN INDIA

Jawaharlal Handoo, one of the foremost scholars of folklore studies from India, has divided the growth of folklore studies in India into three periods: 

1. the Missionary Period, 

2. the Nationalistic Period and 

3. the Academic Period.

 The Missionary Period

The Christian missionaries, who started their mission of spreading Christianity in India in the early nineteenth century, were eventually the first batch of collectors and publishers of the first-hand resources of Indian traditional cultural lives in various regions. Though those publications of the missionaries were void of theoretical analysis of An Introduction to Folklore pure academics, their works were, and still are, valuable because of their highly informative contents.

some western philologists and orientalists took significant steps of establishing academic societies and starting important periodicals

The civil servants of the British administration in India were also engaged in this period in collection and study of Indian folklore materials. Though the motivation behind such works of the colonial administrators was primarily to gather helpful local information for effective administration, they too, like the missionaries, collected and studied various forms of Indian oral traditions in all parts of the country

The Nationalist Period

sentiments got momentum along with the Indian freedom struggle, which began in 1857. Indian scholars and intellectuals began to search and establish their cultural roots by exploring their own culture and tradition.

Besides the Indian scholars and authors, few western scholars also contributed significantly in the collection and study of Indian folklore during this time.

 For the first time an Indian perspective began to work on the study of Indian folklore during this period. Secondly folkloric resources began to be associated with national unity and identity which was apparent all throughout the Indian freedom movement.

The Academic Period 

began after the Indian independence in 1947.

If the missionary period was marked with collection of raw data on Indian folklore and the nationalist period was filled with patriotic emotions, the academic period was featured with objectives of truth-finding about, and scientific analysis and preservation of, Indian folklore by the Indians.

________________________________________________________________

UNIT 2 THEMATIC AND NARRATIVE CONCERNS OF INDIAN FOLK LITERATURE

“Oral literature called verbal art or expressive literature are spoken, sung, and voiced forms of traditional utterances. Traditionally this has been known as folk literature as well”. 

• Ramayana • Mahabharata • Puranas • Upanishads • Panchtantra • Narayana Pandit’s Hitopadesa • Gunadhya’s Brihatkatha • Somadeva’s Kathasaritsagara • Dasvetala Panchavimsatika • Sukasaptati • Jataka Tales

 THEMATIC CONCERN IN FOLK LITERATURE

The world of folk literature has never been based on publication business with its multi-layered processes of making a successful text; rather it has always sustained on its capability to provide people with a medium of expression which smoothly tells their story and enriches itself with every fresh narration.

folk literature often turns to the most popular materials on life present in the popular discourse. The telling makes it unique and fresh. The retelling of every folk text leads to creation of a new text.

 NARRATIVE CONCERN OF FOLK LITERATURE 

Personification is a popular feature in folk literature.  folk literature maintains a general worldview of “vasudhaiva kutumbakam”: a Sanskrit phrase which means the whole world is a family. The world as a family includes animals and plants too as members. Therefore in folk literature the protagonists and characters are equally represented and portrayed through human beings, animals and plants.

Irony

Hyperbole

cultural terms, local idioms, proverbs and colloquial expressions

Allusion to mythology, historical events, cultural beliefs and myths

Religious allusions, Court-wits

1. Characterization Characters are generally flat with either very good or very bad qualities pronounced distinctively.

2. Setting The setting of action is often not elaborately described.

3. Time is mostly in the past set within the history of the particular culture and place

4. Plot is usually simple though interesting in folk literature. The plot moves fast and keeps the listeners’ attentive. Conflicts are by and large resolved 

5. Style The descriptions in tales and stories are not verbose, rather to the point, with minimal detailing

6. Point of View and Tone Point of view in folk literature is generally represented through third person narration. Tone of the narrative is often directed to foreground the preference of good over bad/evil.

_____________________________________________________________

UNIT 3 INDIAN FOLKLORE: FORMS, PATTERNS AND VARIATIONS

The folk identify with the specific community whether it is tribal or non-tribal and lore specifies the collective knowledge or wisdom on a particular subject.

Since folklore finds its expression through culture, therefore, the study of folklore cannot be fruitful and perfect without the study of its culture.

Folk art or Artistic Folklore is the broad category of the artistic depiction of a myth or folklore. There are two subcategories of this type:

1.  the performing folk art and 

2. the non-performing folk art.

 When a myth is translated into a pictorial and is associated with a written/oral narrative, it establishes a wider link with performing and non-performing reality.

Performing arts are broadly those art forms where the human body is used to enact a written or oral literature. Folk performing arts include music, dance, drama, rhyming, theatre etc.

The visual aspect of performing arts lies in the body movements of the performer or the singing talent of the folk singer. In such performances, in order to depict a character more authentically or loudly several other aids are incorporated. These include modification in physical ambience of the performance area; the costume and the body makeup of the performer, several accompanying musical instruments for the singer or the performer

Folk non-performing arts include folk painting, sculptures, making of a variety of arts and crafts for several materials, and body ornamentation through painting or tailoring. The costumes devised by communities for their specific identities have a large constituent of the folk element.

Generally the two dimensional depiction of a myth is termed as the folk art form, whereas three dimensional depiction is categorized as folk craft. Manifestation of a myth may be both through a painting or any material such as clay, metal, grass etc. to give a three-dimensional form. 

FOLK DRAMA AND THEATRE

Drama developed in two types — 

1. the classic drama, which had intricacies of theme and subtle nuances of dramatic traits,

2.  folk theatre, which was of spontaneous and extempore nature. Local dialect was used in folk theatre and hence many types of folk theatres developed in different provinces. Acting with accompaniment of music and dance was the popular practice.

 Bengal: Jatra, Kirtania Natak ii) Bihar: Bidesia iii) Rajasthan: Raas, Jhumar, Dhola Maru iv) Uttar Pradesh: Raas, Nautanki, Svaang, Bhaand v) Gujarat: Bhawaii vi) Maharashtra: Larite, Tamasha vii) Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka: Kathakali, Yakshagana

Instruments like dhol, kartal, manjira, khanjira were some of the props used in folk theatre.

indian theatre can be divided into three kinds: 

1. classical or Sanskrit theatre, 

2. traditional or folk theatre, and 

3. modern theatre.

Sometimes, if actors happen to forget a verse or a dialogue, they skip those verses and continue their performance.On the request of the audience, the artists may also repeat certain verses, dialogues & songs during the performance. Only traditional folk theatre is capable of being so accommodative. Modern Indian proscenium theatre is devoid of such spontaneity.

 COMMUNITY SONGS AND DANCES

Puppetry (Kathputli)

Folk Dance Forms

________________________________________________________________________

UNIT 4 THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO Patterns and Variations FOLKLORE

_______________________________________________________________________