Another Definition of Folklore
I am working on my annotated bibliography and have ran across yet another definition for folklore.
W.K. McNeil, in his book Southern Mountain Folksongs (1993) describes the definition of folklore as material that is passed on orally, informally, and becomes traditional; undergoes change over space and time, creating varients and versions; is anonymous in the sense that most bearers of folklore are not concerned with who the original creator was, or even that there was an original creator; and finally, usually is formulaic.
Oh, now I get it!
I did think this definition was pretty good, except with limiting folklore as being only oral. I thought it did a nice job putting a little description of a characteristic of tradition, by saying it changes over time. Maybe the author only included oral because the book is a collection of folksongs. This person seems to know a lot about folklore, so I'm sure they know what they are talking about. Maybe they were trying to make it easier for the reader.
W.K. McNeil, in his book Southern Mountain Folksongs (1993) describes the definition of folklore as material that is passed on orally, informally, and becomes traditional; undergoes change over space and time, creating varients and versions; is anonymous in the sense that most bearers of folklore are not concerned with who the original creator was, or even that there was an original creator; and finally, usually is formulaic.
Oh, now I get it!
I did think this definition was pretty good, except with limiting folklore as being only oral. I thought it did a nice job putting a little description of a characteristic of tradition, by saying it changes over time. Maybe the author only included oral because the book is a collection of folksongs. This person seems to know a lot about folklore, so I'm sure they know what they are talking about. Maybe they were trying to make it easier for the reader.
posted by Amy Noble at
9:13 PM
2 Comments:
Nice post. I think that's a pretty useful definition too. You're exactly right to notice that it limits folklore to what is oral.
Let me draw your attention to another limiting factor modern folklorists would rather do without: informal transmission. What that implies is that folklore (group knowledge) passed on outside of formal structures (such as schools or other organizations) is genuine folklore. Of course, that disallows any traditions that are passed on through formal structures--not something most present day folklorists accept.
By
Chris Antonsen, at 9:33 AM
You're misreading him I think. He is saying that solely limiting folklore to these things is not what folklorists want to do. As soon as you define something as "always" this or "always" that. You will inevitably find some sort of ethnological platypus that will not fit in the box you've built for it.
Where's Matt? I think he needs to be reading this.
By
Butch Ross, at 7:36 AM
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