II.

Folktale Scholarship

In the early 19th century great interest in folktales was created by the publication of Household Tales (2 volumes, 1812-1815; translated 1884) by the German philologists Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm (see Grimm Brothers). Their work stimulated writers of many other nations, including the Scottish classicist and folklorist Andrew Lang and the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen, to publish and retell similar materials of their own peoples. The Grimm brothers noted great similarity in themes and characters among German and other European folktales; later folklorists discovered resemblances between European folktales and those of other continents.

Much 19th-century scholarship concentrated on attempts to account for these similarities. Generally, the 19th-century scholars were unaware of the vast store of African, Native American, and Oceanic lore that existed independently of the Indo-European tradition. They sought their explanations in those parts of the world that seemed important to them. Thus, the Grimms postulated a common Indo-European origin for folktales, and the German philologist Theodor Benfey as well as the Scottish writer William Clouston believed that stories diffused by way of travelers migrating east and west from India. Such theories, however, have proven incomplete and inadequate. Nevertheless, the research of these and other scholars greatly stimulated interest in folklore and folktales. The German scholar Max Muller held that myths originated when Sanskrit and other ancient languages began to deteriorate, and when the Scottish classicist and folklorist Andrew Lang attacked this view, folktales became the subject of additional attention. Research was further stimulated by the immense popularity of The Golden Bough (1890), a 12-volume compendium of ancient lore by the British anthropologist Sir James George Frazer.

More recently, researchers—many of them influenced by the German American anthropologist Franz Boas—have collected and made in-depth studies of tales and lore from every part of the world. Some, following the leads of the Finnish folklorist Antti Aarne and the American folklorist Stith Thompson, have prepared full geographical and historical surveys of all the known variants of widely disseminated tales, always with an eye to discovering and cataloging the basic tale types and motifs. Aarne produced a catalog in 1910, which Thompson enlarged and translated in 1928. This catalog became the Type-Index; it classifies the plots of a variety of folktales. Thompson’s Motif-Index catalogs narrative elements—such as objects, special animals, concepts, actions, or characters—found in folktales. As a result of the work of past researchers, few folklorists today believe that any one theory is satisfactory in explaining the similarities and variations in the folktales and folklore of the world.

Some modern authors, critics, and literary scholars, heavily influenced by the writings of the psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, use the term myth in a more generalized way than defined here. In this usage (which varies from writer to writer), myth refers to recurring symbols and motifs that are shared by all people in all places and that serve as a common language for the expression of ideas, values, and emotions. When used in this way, myth is not sharply distinguished from legend or Märchen, or even from literary genres such as novels and dramas, which are all considered more recent forms assumed by humanity’s urge to express itself through myths.