Morphology of the Folktale
Oct. 13th, 2015 11:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marycatelliMorphology of the Folktale by Vladimir Propp
An incredibly academic analysis of fairy tales. If you're not merely interested in fairy tales but also variants and things like that, you are very likely to like it.
Note that familiarity with tales, especially Russian ones, helps a lot to recognize what he's talking about. (All the Russian tales are identified by number. I wouldn't mind that so much -- all of Brother Grimms' do, too, though you may need the right edition -- and of course he uses Alexander Afanasyev's -- if I could find a translation that bothered to give me the numbers.)
But the break down into the abstract functions and characters and other elements is fascinating, with some colorful details about the possibilities.
An incredibly academic analysis of fairy tales. If you're not merely interested in fairy tales but also variants and things like that, you are very likely to like it.
Note that familiarity with tales, especially Russian ones, helps a lot to recognize what he's talking about. (All the Russian tales are identified by number. I wouldn't mind that so much -- all of Brother Grimms' do, too, though you may need the right edition -- and of course he uses Alexander Afanasyev's -- if I could find a translation that bothered to give me the numbers.)
But the break down into the abstract functions and characters and other elements is fascinating, with some colorful details about the possibilities.