Authors: Carl Lindahl (Editor), Mary Ellen Brown
ISBN-13: 9781878318756, ISBN-10: 1878318756
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Date Published: June 2002
Edition: (Non-applicable)
Carl Lindahl is Professor of English at the University of Houston.
This volume is about North American Märchen, a vernacular art form that is often strangely ignored or misconstrued. At the same time, the vitality and appeal of the genre are evidenced by its persistent presentation as written literature. The essays in this volume reexamine common assumptions about "magic" tales and their tellers, reconsidering the performance, collection, transcription, publication, and interpretation of narratives that continue to live orally especially in the private realm as one mechanism of intergenerational communication or as a symbolic expression of worldview.
In addition to four interpretive essays, six segments focus on storytellers and their transcribed narratives, accompanied by introductions that place them in context. Some segments compare editing practices or narrative styles; others represent the first publication of contemporary narratives or tales that have long lain in archives, unheard and unavailable. All attest to the skill of the tellers and the artistry of their creations.
Foreword | ||
A Tale of Verbal Economy: "Stiff Dick" | 1 | |
Introduction: Representing and Recovering the British- and Irish-American Marchen | 7 | |
Two Tellings of "Merrywise": 1949 and 2000 | 39 | |
Two Versions of "Rawhead and Bloodybones" from the Farmer-Muncy Family | 55 | |
Sounding a Shy Tradition: Oral and Written Styles of American Mountain Marchen | 68 | |
Two Transcriptions of "Jack and the Bull," by Polly Johnson | 99 | |
Storybook Style: "Jack and the Green Man" | 106 | |
Is Old Jack Really Richard Chase? | 111 | |
A Model of Appropriate Behavior? "The Ship That Sailed on Land and Water" | 139 | |
Jack and His Masters: Real Worlds and Tale Worlds in Newfoundland Folktales | 149 | |
In Memoriam: Herbert Halpert | 171 | |
Abstracts | 175 | |
Contributors | 177 |