Morphology of the Folktale (Publications of the American Folklore Society)
by V. Propp is another one of those books that is a folklore staple. You need to be familiar with it. So it should be in your library. It's that simple.This is a Saturday post. And I am not the person to explain Propp's Morphology. Apparently, many people aren't because there's not a simple description of the book that I could find in my quick searching. Oh well. Wikipedia tries and most succeeds. See the entries on Vladimir Propp and Morphology, the latter is better at summarizing while the former breaks down Propp's approach and provides some extra links which is usually my primary reason for visiting Wikipedia.
About Propp:
Vladimir Propp was born in Petersburg, April 29, 1895. In 1932 he was called to a position at the University of Leningrad and went on to make major contributions to Russian folklore studies, comparative mythology, and the classification of folklore genres. His international fame is closely tied to the contributions he made to the structural analysis of folklore in Morphology of the Folktale.
Having read the book many years ago maybe I can try to add something useful:
ReplyDelete- if you want to understand the structure of folktale or fairy tale (together with some deeper meanings or maybe some history), Propp is still the standard,
- reading is not an easy one, so take your time to chew and reread some sections,
- when you finish the book, the whole new worlds could open.
I recommend it to all real enthusiasts with some extra time!