what is a folk literature

Definition of Folklore

Folklore is a collection of fictional stories about animals and people, of cultural myths , jokes, songs, tales, and even quotes. It is a description of culture, which has been passed down verbally from generation to generation, though many are now in written form. Folklore is also known as “folk literature,” or “oral traditions.”

Folklore depicts the way main characters manage their everyday life events, including conflicts or crises. Simply, folk literature is about individual experiences from a particular society. The study of folk tradition and knowledge is called folkloristics. Although some folklores depict universal truths, unfounded beliefs and superstitions are also basic elements of folklore tradition.

Types of Folklore

Following are the major forms of folklore:

Fairy Tales
Folk dramas
Proverbs , charms, and riddles
Use of Folklore by Children

Examples of Folklore in Literature

Example #1: rudyard kipling.

Rudyard Kipling was keenly interested in folklore, as he has written many English works based on folklore such as, Rewards and Fairies and Puck of Pook’s Hill . His experiences in Indian environment have led him to create several works about Indian themes and tradition. Since Kipling has lived a great deal of life in Indian regions, he was much familiar with the Indian languages.

Kipling’s popular work, The Jungle Book , consists of plenty of stories about traditional folktales. He also has Indian themes in his work, Just So Stories, in which he has given many characters recognizable names related to Indian languages. Helen Bannerman has also penned an Indian themed folktale, Little Black Sambo, during the same period.

Example #2: Patrick Henry

Patrick Henry was a politician, attorney and planter, who gained popularity as an orator when Americans were struggling for independence. He is well known for his speech in the House of Burgesses in 1775 in the church of Saint Joseph. The House was undecided about whether they need to mobilize and take military action against encroaching military forces of England. Henry gave his arguments in favor of American forces’ mobilization. After forty-two years, William Wirt, Henry’s first biographer, working from different oral histories and stories, reconstructed the sayings of Henry, outlining the folk traditions he inherited and passed on.

Example #3: A. K. Ramanujan

A. K. Ramanujan has written a lot about context sensitivity as a theme in many cultural essays, classical poetry, and Indian folklore. For example, in his works Three Hundred Ramayanas, and Where Mirrors are Windows , he talks about intertextual quality of written and oral Indian literature. His popular essay , Where Mirrors Are Windows: Toward an Anthology of Reflections, and commentaries done on Indian folktales, including Oral Tales from Twenty Indian Languages, and The Interior Landscape: Love Poems from a Classical Tamil Anthology, Present Perfect examples of Indian folk literature studies.

Example #4: Alan Garner

Alan Garner is a renowned English novelist popular for writing fantasy tales and retellings of traditional English folk tales. His works are mainly rooted in history, landscape, and folklore of his native country Cheshire. One of such children’s novels is, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen: A Tale of Alderley , which took a local legend from The Wizard of the Edge , and described landscapes and folklore of neighboring Alderley Edge, where Alan had grown up. The novel is set in Alderley Edge in Cheshire and Macclesfield. This is a very good example of the use of folktales in literature.

Function of Folklore

The main purpose of folklore is to convey a moral lesson and present useful information and everyday life lessons in an easy way for the common people to understand. Folk tales sugarcoat the lessons of hard life in order to give the audience pointers about how they should behave. It is one of the best mediums to pass on living culture or traditions to future generations.

Currently, many forms of folk literature have been transformed into books and manuscripts, which we see in the forms of novels, histories, dramas, stories, lyric poems, and sermons. Folk literature is, however, not merely a carrier of cultural values; rather, it is also an expression of self-reflection. It serves as a platform to hold high moral ground without any relevance to present day reality. Instead, writers use it as a commentary or satire on current political and social reality. In the modern academic world, folklores and folktales are studied to understand ancient literature and civilizations.

Folklore Reference Collection at Indiana University

Reference Resources in Folklore and Ethnomusicology
Bibliographies
Encyclopedias
Folk Belief

Folk Narrative and Storytelling

Folk poetry, folklore and literature.

Folk Speech
Handbooks and Guides
Material Culture
Motif and Type Indexes

What is Folk Literature?

Folk Literature includes folk narratives (fables, folktales, legends, fairy tales, and storytelling); folk poetry (oral poetry, ballads, epics). Works on folklore and literature are also on this page. Works on myth are found in a separate section. Tale type and motif-indexes also have a tab to themselves.

<< Previous: Folk Belief
Next: Folk Speech >>
Last Updated: Apr 28, 2023 1:16 PM
URL: https://guides.libraries.indiana.edu/folkref

Social media

Instagram for Herman B Wells Library
Facebook for IU Libraries

Additional resources

Featured databases.

Resource available to authorized IU Bloomington users (on or off campus) OneSearch@IU
Resource available to authorized IU Bloomington users (on or off campus) Academic Search (EBSCO)
Resource available to authorized IU Bloomington users (on or off campus) ERIC (EBSCO)
Resource available to authorized IU Bloomington users (on or off campus) Nexis Uni
Resource available without restriction HathiTrust Digital Library
Databases A-Z
Resource available to authorized IU Bloomington users (on or off campus) Google Scholar
Resource available to authorized IU Bloomington users (on or off campus) JSTOR
Resource available to authorized IU Bloomington users (on or off campus) Web of Science
Resource available to authorized IU Bloomington users (on or off campus) Scopus
Resource available to authorized IU Bloomington users (on or off campus) WorldCat

IU Libraries

Diversity Resources
About IU Libraries
Alumni & Friends
Departments & Staff
Jobs & Libraries HR
Intranet (Staff)
IUL site admin

Tools and Resources
Customer Services
Ancient Economy
Ancient Geography
Christianity
Gender Studies
Greek History and Historiography
Greek Literature
Greek Material Culture: Bronze Age
Greek Material Culture
Greek Myth and Religion
Jewish Studies
Late Antiquity
Latin Literature
Linguistics
Roman History and Historiography
Roman Material Culture
Roman Myth and Religion
Science, Technology, and Medicine

Article contents

William Hansen
https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.013.8030
Published online: 27 February 2017

Folktales are traditional fictional stories. Unlike works of original literary fiction, they are normally anonymous narratives that have been transmitted from one teller to another over an uncertain period of time, and have been shaped by multiple narrators into the form and style that are characteristic of oral narratives. The transmission of traditional tales is predominantly oral, but in literate societies such as Greece and Rome, transmission also takes place via written works.

“Folktale” is an umbrella term for a number of subgenres: the wonder tale (commonly known as the fairytale), the religious tale, the novella, the humorous tale (with its subforms the joke and the tall tale), the animal tale, and the fable. Since there was no ancient notion of folktales as such, no compilation of folktales exists from antiquity—only compilations of particular genres of folktales such as the fable and the joke.

Unlike myths and legends, folktales are narrative fictions, make no serious claim to historicity, and are not ordinarily accorded credence. They differ from myths and especially from legends in their handling of the supernatural.

folk narrative
oral tradition

Folktales are traditional fictional stories. “Traditional” means that the stories have been transmitted from narrator to narrator sufficiently to have acquired the form and style that is characteristic of traditional oral narratives the world over. The transmission of folktales is predominantly oral, but in literate societies such as ancient Greece and Rome, it was common for traditional narratives to be transmitted by both oral and literary channels.

“Folktale” denotes not a single kind of story but is an umbrella term for different genres of traditional narrative fiction. The principal genres of the folktale found in classical literature are the wonder tale (commonly known as the fairytale), the religious tale, the novella, the humorous tale (with its subforms the joke and the tall tale), the animal tale, and the fable. Since there was no ancient concept of, or term for, folktale or for most of its forms, many genre categories in current use are modern analytic creations that have been devised by folk-narrative scholars for the purpose of study and communication. Only a few, such as the humorous tale and the Aesopic fable, are native categories for which the Greeks and Romans had terms.

Although folktales, like myths and legends, are narratives that are formed and transmitted predominantly in oral tradition, they differ from myths and legends in several ways. Most importantly, in terms of their poetics, folktales are presented as accounts of imaginary events, whereas myths and legends are formed as reports of actual events. Myths and legends make a claim, however strong or modest it may be, on the listener’s belief, whereas folktales do not.

Forms of the Greek and Roman Folktale

Wonder tale.

The kind of tale that is commonly known as the fairytale is termed magic tale or wonder tale by folk-narrative scholars, since magic and an atmosphere of wonder are characteristic of the genre, whereas fairies appear infrequently. In the familiar plot of a wonder tale, a young protagonist sets out into the world, encounters the supernatural, overcomes various obstacles, and succeeds by virtue of good qualities such as kindness or perseverance. Marvelous elements such as talking animals, magic objects, witches, and ogres are commonplace, not to mention princes, princesses, and palaces. The wonder tale is the most complex form of the folktale.

Although there are several ancient narratives of magic and wonder that may be classified as fairytales—for example, the tale of the woodcutter and the golden axe 1 —there is only one, the tale of Cupid and Psyche, that fits the classic profile of what is today thought of as that of the fairytale. The story appears in the Metamorphoses , or The Golden Ass (4.28–6.24), by the Roman novelist Apuleius. The tale of Cupid and Psyche is generally agreed to be an ancient version, somewhat allegorised, of an international folktale. 2 In this widely known tale, a young woman weds a supernatural bridegroom. He forbids her to do something, usually to look upon him, but she breaks the taboo, after which he departs. She sets out to find him, coming eventually to the house of his mother, a witch (or, in Apuleius’s novel, the goddess Venus, who behaves like one). The girl’s hostile mother-in-law assigns her a series of seemingly impossible tasks, which she manages to accomplish with the help of her husband and other beings such as kindly animals. In the end the bride and bridegroom are happily reunited.

Religious Tale

The religious tale is a traditional fiction that portrays an aspect of the relationship of humans and gods, such as a deity rewarding or punishing human behavior, or a deity giving humans a lesson in the way of the world from the viewpoint of the gods. For example, a poor man became sick and made a vow of a hundred oxen to the gods if they should preserve him. Putting him to the test, the gods restored his health. Since, however the man possessed no actual oxen, he formed a hundred oxen out of clay and sacrificed them upon an altar, saying that he had fulfilled his vow. The gods, wishing to repay him in kind, sent him a dream in which they told him to go to the seashore, where he would fetch a thousand drachmas. He ran happily to the shore, where pirates seized him and carried him away. When they sold him, he fetched a thousand drachmas. 3

The novella is a realistic, sometimes complex tale of traditional fiction. Deception is a common theme.

Thus, a tale relates how a certain man of Miletus, fearing that his country might be invaded, sailed to Sicily where he deposited his gold with a friend who was a banker. Sometime later he sailed back to Sicily to recover his deposit. But the banker, although acknowledging that he had received the gold, claimed he had returned it. The two men quarreled, and the Milesian challenged the banker to swear an oath. The banker devised a deceit whereby he hollowed out a fennel stalk, melted down the gold, and poured it into the hollow stalk, which he pretended to employ as a walking-stick. After asking the Milesian to hold his stick, he swore that he had returned the gold to the depositor. In his anger the Milesian threw down the fennel stalk, which broke apart, revealing the hidden gold as well as the deceit. The Milesian recovered his property, but the banker hanged himself from shame. 4

Many novelle are ribald, such as the renowned tale of the widow of Ephesus. 5 A woman of Ephesus was renowned for her fidelity. When her husband died, the mourning widow accompanied his corpse to the tomb with the firm intention of joining him in death. Meanwhile, in the cemetery, a soldier guarding the corpses of several crucified thieves noticed a light in a tomb and went to investigate. Inside the tomb he discovered the beautiful matron and her maidservant. He offered them food, which eventually they accepted, and in time the soldier and the widow became intimate—indeed, so amorously involved that the soldier failed to notice that someone stole one of the corpses he was supposed to be guarding. The widow came to his rescue by substituting the corpse of her late husband for that of the missing thief.

The bawdy tale of the Ephesian matron is the kind of novella that the Romans called a Milesia (sc. fabula ), or Milesian tale. The term arose from a Greek composition entitled Milesiaka , published in the 2nd century bce by a certain Aristides (2) . The book seems to have been a compilation of licentious novelle. Unfortunately, it has not survived.

Humorous Tale

The humorous tale is a narrative of traditional comic fiction. For example, the son of a numbskull was playing with a ball. When the ball fell into a well, the boy leaned over its edge and, seeing himself reflected in the water, asked for his ball back. When he did not get it, he complained to his father. The man leaned over the edge of the well and, seeing his own reflection, said, “Sir, give the boy back his ball.” 6

An ancient cycle of comic tales played upon the stereotype of the extremely delicate inhabitants of Sybaris. Thus, after Smindyrides the Sybarite spent the night sleeping on a bed of roses, he woke up and complained of blisters. 7

When a humorous tale lays its weight on a climactic ending, closing with a punchline, it is termed a joke . Thus, a numbskull wanted to lie down and go to sleep but did not have a pillow, so he told his slave to put a jug down. The slave said the jug was hard. “Well, fill it with feathers, then,” he said. 8

A humorous tale consisting of outrageous exaggerations is known as a tall tale . Lucian recounts how he, his companions, and his entire ship were swallowed whole by a great fish 150 miles in length, inside of which they found wrecked ships and other human beings. 9 Lucian’s True Stories illustrates the fondness of raconteurs of such lying tales for recounting their alleged experiences in the first person. With similarly comic exaggeration, a certain Antiphanes reports that there is a city where the weather gets so cold that words freeze in the winter, so that only in the summer, as words thaw, do people hear what they spoke about during the past winter. 10

Animal Tale

The animal tale is a traditional fiction in which the principal characters are animals. These characters usually display a mix of animal and human behavioral traits.

Thus a bat, a berry bush, and a seagull once formed a partnership and went into business. The bat borrowed some money, the berry bush contributed some clothing, and the gull bought some bronze. Off they sailed, but a storm arose and sunk their ship. Ever since then, the gull has been diving into the sea in the hope of finding its bronze, the bat does not show itself by day for fear of encountering its creditors, and the berry bush, looking for its clothes, takes hold of the garments of passers-by. 11 This tale offers whimsical aetiologies for characteristics of its animal and plant characters.

The fable is a simple, traditional fiction that is employed to convey a message metaphorically. The Greeks and Romans called fables “Aesopian tales,” associating the genre with the renowned fabulist Aesop, a possibly historical character of the 6th century bce . The principal characters in fables are most often animals, but they can otherwise be humans, gods, plants, and the like.

In a well-known Aesopic fable, a tortoise and a hare disputed about their relative speed and decided to have a race. Confident in its natural swiftness, the hare did not take the contest seriously but lay down beside the road and fell asleep. But the tortoise, quite aware of its own slowness, did not cease running and so passed the sleeping hare and won the race. 12 In written collections of fables, compilers often append an epimythium , or “after-tale,” to the narrative, giving the application, or moral, of the tale. 13 The point of the present fable, as the anonymous fabulist points out, is that hard work can trump natural ability when ability is neglected.

Sources of the Ancient Folktale

Since neither the Greeks nor the Romans had a concept of, or term for, the folktale, no ancient author thought to collect and publish a miscellany of traditional fictional narratives. As a result, the sources for our knowledge of ancient folktales are eclectic, consisting of (1) narrations of, or allusions to, individual tales in context, (2) compilations of tales by genre, and (3) adaptations of individual tales in literature and comedy.

Narrations in Context

Narrations of tales in context are of two sorts, first-order and second-order. In one, an author narrates a story for his own artistic or rhetorical purposes, as when Plutarch relates the Aesopic tale of the fox and the crane in the course of his discussion of topics of conversation that contribute to or detract from the success of a party. He recommends broaching uncomplicated topics that everyone can discuss. Persons who introduce complex subjects are no more fit for parties, he says, than Aesop’s fox and crane. A fox once hosted a crane for dinner, serving broth on a flat stone that the crane was unable to consume. The crane in turn invited the fox, serving the meal in a narrow-necked jar into which the fox was unable to insert its mouth. Similarly, Plutarch concludes, when philosophers raise complex topics at symposia, they irritate most of the symposiasts, who cannot follow, and the spirit of the party is ruined. 14 Here the essayist illustrates his argument by comparing the human social situation with an imaginary one featuring animals that behave much like humans.

In second-order narration, an author relates a tale not in his own voice, but in the voice of a character in an invented social situation within his composition, as when the novelist Petronius has one of his characters, Eumolpus, recount the humorous novella of the widow of Ephesus to an audience of fellow passengers and sailors aboard a ship ( Sat . 109–113). Represented storytelling is very common in Greek and Roman literature from Homer onwards. An advantage of contextual narrations of both kinds is that the narratives are embedded in storytelling situations, whether the situations are real or invented.

Sometimes, however, authors only allude to a tale, deeming it to be well known to their readers or audience. In one of Aristophanes’s comedies, a character mentions a woman who “held up a garment to the light for her husband to see, and so managed to let her lover, who had been hiding, to escape” ( Thesm . 498–501). In this case the playwright is thinking of an international folktale that is well known to folk-narrative scholars, so that the plot can easily be filled out from later texts in which the tale is related fully. It is one of several ribald tales in which a woman is entertaining her lover when her husband unexpectedly arrives home. In this tale she facilitates her lover’s escape from the house by showing her husband a fabric, which diverts his attention; in some versions the husband has only one good eye, in which case the ruse is all the easier to pull off. 15

In some cases, however, ancient authors allude to stories that are no longer known and so cannot be filled out with certainty. Thus, Tertullian mentions nurses telling children at bedtime a tale or tales about “the Towers of the Lamia and the Combs of the Sun” (Tert. Adv. Valent . 3.3 Fredouille). No one now knows what lies behind the allusion, which Tertullian must have regarded as too obvious to explain.

Compilations

Compilations, particularly fable compilations, are a rich source of folktales. The earliest attested collection of Aesopic fables is the Aisopeia , composed by Demetrius of Phalerum toward the end of the 4th century bce . Although Demetrius’s work has not survived, a papyrus fragment containing a few tales from a fable book in Greek prose (Rylands pap. 493) probably gives a glimpse of its nature, which was that of a handbook. Presently other authors published other compilations of fables. Phaedrus published a collection in Latin verse in the 1st century ce , and Babrius published a collection in Greek verse. In addition to compilations by named authors, several anonymous compilations of Aesopic fables in Greek prose have been preserved, beginning with the so-called Collectio Augustana , or Augustana Collection, which dates to the 2nd or 3rd century ce . Other collections in Greek and Latin followed, some in prose and some in verse, the former composed in the spirit of the practical handbook, the latter in the spirit of literature, however modest. For the researcher, the advantage of compilations is that they bring together many tales (the Augustana Collection, for example, contains 231 fables), whereas their principal disadvantage is that the narratives lack individual contexts of transmission that might illustrate their uses and meanings.

For the study of ancient folktales, a bonus offered by the fable collections is that the ancient fabulists’ criteria for what constitutes a fable are quite generous. The compilers admit into their collections not only fables in the strict sense but also other kinds of story such as novelle, humorous tales, religious tales, animal tales, and aetiological narratives. 16 Hence, the ancient fable collections are excellent sources not only of fables but also of other genres of folktale.

The only other kind of folktale collection that survives from the ancient world is a jokebook entitled Philogelos , or Laughter-Lover , which is attributed to a certain Hierocles and Philagrius, about whom nothing certain is known. Since several of the witticisms are datable to the 3rd or 4th century ce , the collection in its present form cannot be earlier than this, but other jokes reflect earlier historical events, while most of the jokes are simply undatable. It is likely, then, that, like the anonymous collections of Aesopic fables in Greek prose, the virtually anonymous Philogelos is a compilation of Greek jokes of different dates that developed over time as successive authors and copyists added to it, subtracted from it, and otherwise modified it.

The idea of jokebooks, at least, seems to be much older, since they are mentioned in Roman comedy. In one play, the parasite Gelasimus consults several such books from his collection in order to equip himself with ridicula (Plaut. Stich . 400, 454–455), and in another play the parasite Saturio boasts of having a chest full of jokebooks at home (Plaut. Persa 392–395). Since these plays were adaptations of Greek comedies performed in the 4th and 3rd centuries bce , it is reasonable to suppose that jokebooks existed in Greece by the 4th century . Since these early compilations of wit do not survive, one cannot be sure exactly what sort of witticism they featured.

No other collection of traditional narrative fiction has survived. Around 100 bce , Aristides (2) published a work entitled Milesian Tales ( Milesiaka ), which appear to have been ribald novelle, and the book was popular enough that it was translated by Sisenna into Latin in the 1st century bce , but the Greek original as well as the Latin translation are lost, and no other ancient collection of novelle has come down to us.

Adaptations

A third source for texts of ancient folktales consists of literary and dramatic adaptations. This is listed as a separate category because folktales that have been reworked for another purpose are sometimes disguised or distorted in such a way as not to be easily recognised.

Plautus’s comedy Miles Gloriosus illustrates a straightforward case of folktale adaptation. The play presents two neighbouring houses, in one of which there dwells the braggart soldier Pyrgopolynices with the courtesan Philocomasium, whom he abducted. The courtesan’s lover Pleusicles moves in next door and cuts a hole in the wall between the two houses, allowing the girl to come and go unnoticed between the two residences. When the soldier’s slave spots her elsewhere, she is represented as being Philocomasium’s twin sister, Dicea. After this, complication is piled upon complication.

The basic situation and action were long ago recognised as being those of an international comic folktale. 17 Unsurprisingly, the playwright modified the story in order to adapt it to the conventions of the comic stage, such as making the folktale’s married woman into the comedy’s courtesan, thereby avoiding the unseemly situation of a married woman having sexual relations with more than one man. Still, the parallels between the play and the folktale are striking. Plautus’s work was based upon a lost Greek comedy, Alazon ( Braggart ), which in turn must have been based upon the oral tale. So just as the Greek tragedians drew their plots mostly from Greek myth and legend, the comic playwrights, it seems, drew some of their stories from the folktale.

A less obvious, and so less certain, instance is the relationship between Plautus’s Menaechmi , which was based upon an unknown Greek comedy, and the international folktale known as “The Twins.” 18 Both the play and the oral tale present the adventures of twin brothers. One of two identical twins sets out, ends up at a distant town, and marries. Subsequently, the second twin sets out to find him and arrives at the same town, where he is mistaken for his brother, an error that he exploits. After several complications, the two brothers are happily reunited and return home together. A possible relationship between the play and the oral tale does not readily suggest itself because the apparent source, the folktale of the twins, is not a humorous story. However, it is a tale that turns upon a confusion of characters, which was a favorite comic device in New Comedy.

False Friends

Some international stories are recounted only as folktales, others only as legends, and still others are told in one place and time as folktales and in others as legends. In short, genre is sometimes persistent and sometimes mutable. An example of genre variance is the tale of “The Blinded Ogre,” which has been collected from oral storytellers in many lands, almost always as a folktale, whereas in ancient Greece it was one of the adventures of Odysseus, ruler of Ithaca and participant in the Trojan War, who was accordingly a character of heroic legend. Indeed, instances in which essentially the same story is found anciently as a legend and in modern times as a folktale are numerous. Many scholars have cited stories such as that of Odysseus and the Cyclops as folktales because the ancient stories have folktale analogues in modern tradition, or because the scholars think they recognise “folktale motifs” in ancient myths and legends. But it is incorrect and confusing to characterise as folktales Greek and Roman stories that for the ancients were narratives that made a claim to historicity. 19 If one counts such stories as folktales or such motifs as folktale elements, the category of folktale ceases to be useful. Much scholarship on the ancient folktale from the early researchers onwards is marred by such vague and unclear treatments of narrative genres.

Peculiarities of the Folktale

Myths, legends, and folktales are much the same in the nature of their composition. Characteristic features of the worldwide oral narrative form and style were described long ago by the folklorist Axel Olrik. 20 But folktales do differ from myths and legends in at least two significant ways: in their poetics of fiction, and in their treatment of the supernatural and unnatural.

Poetics of Traditional Fiction

Whereas myths and legends are credence narratives, folktales are not. The genres of myth and legend are designed for belief, and in order to enhance their credibility, narrators form them in such a way as to make them appear historical, giving them the sorts of features that are found in reports of actual events. Typically, the principal characters are named and often fit into well-known genealogies, and the action is set in a definite time in the past and is localised in specific places. For example, Odysseus is the son of Laertes and Anticlea, and rules the island of Ithaca; he is contemporary with such notable figures as King Agamemnon of Mycenae and the great warrior Achilles; and he fights in the great war at Troy. Knowledge of the characters and events may be attributed to a trustworthy source, such as, in the case of Homer and Hesiod, the Muses. In short, myths and legends are constructed in such a way as to make a claim upon one’s belief. Whether they succeed or not is another matter, just as is the question of whether they contain any historical truth or not.

In contrast, folktales are fictions, and usually straightforwardly so. Narrators normally make little or no effort to present them as accounts of actual events. Accordingly, their characters and places are usually vague or generic, such as “a widow,” “a king,” “a stag,” “a stream,” “a Sybarite,” and so on, and their events take place in the indefinite past. So in the tale of the widow and the soldier, the only specific information about the characters and setting in Petronius’s narration is that the action transpired in Ephesus; otherwise, the principal characters are unnamed, and the events are set at an unspecified time in the past. In the telling of the same story by Petronius’s contemporary Phaedrus, not even a locale is given. 21

In this respect, the poetics of traditional fiction differs strikingly from that of literary fiction. Important characters in ancient Greek and Roman novels, such as Xenophon of Ephesus’s Ephesian Tale and Petronius’s Satyrica , are all named, the sites of the action are specified, and the temporal settings are clear, as though the novels were reports of actual events. Anonymity of actor, place, and time is characteristic not of fiction as such, but of traditional fiction.

One-dimensionality

Characters in folktales respond to the supernatural and the unnatural in a peculiar way. Indeed, how characters react to the supernatural largely depends upon whether the story in which they appear is generically a myth, legend, or folktale.

In the earliest era of the cosmos, in which Greek myth is set, the world is suffused with supernaturalism. Since the elements of the physical world (Earth, Sky, etc.) and the anthropomorphic gods are divine beings, everything is initially divine and therefore supernatural. At the advent of human beings, both divine and non-divine beings exist, but the two groups—gods and humans—seem to view each other rather like neighbours. Since the gods are present, not hidden, humans do not encounter them with surprise and fear, as we see in Hesiod’s depiction of a meeting of gods and men at Mecone to decide how meat is to be apportioned between them (Hesiod, Theog .), and since in the earliest period death is not yet an aspect of human existence, there are no ghostly phenomena. In the mythic era, the uncanny, the mysterious and wholly other, does not exist.

Human awe and fear of the supernatural first appear after the gods, angered by humans and Prometheus, withdraw from close interaction with humans. The supernatural world is now hidden from the natural world of human beings, although at any time it can suddenly intrude. Now the encounter of a human being with a deity is viewed as frightening and potentially dangerous. Once the goddess Aphrodite came disguised as a young maiden to the hut of the hero Anchises, seduced him, and then revealed her true nature to him. The youth begged her not to harm him, for it was dangerous for a mortal to sleep with an immortal ( Hom. Hymn Ven . 175–190). As with deities, so with ghosts. In a report of astonishing events that allegedly took place in Amphipolis in the 4th century bce , a certain young man carried on an affair with a mysterious young woman who visited his room nightly. Presently the youth, Machates, learned that the woman, Philinnion, had died some months earlier and that his lover was therefore a revenant. When word got out, the entire city was in consternation and responded by burning the girl’s body and by performing purificatory sacrifices, while for his part Machates killed himself. 22 Supernatural phenomena were not of course only erotic. At the haunted battlefield at Marathon one might hear every night the ghostly sounds of horses whinnying and of men engaged in battle. The spirits did not take kindly to anyone who deliberately attempted to witness these happenings (Paus. 1.32.3–4); that is, it was dangerous do so. So awe of the supernatural appears among humans after the Olympian gods withdraw from the world of humans, becoming distant and invisible, and after death enters the world. In legend the world is two-dimensional.

In this respect the folktale is strikingly different. Characters in folktales show not the slightest fear, awe, surprise, or even curiosity at supernatural or other extreme phenomena. If they encounter a deity or a talking animal, they treat them as something quite ordinary. Thus a religious tale relates how a woodcutter grieved after he accidentally dropped his axe into a river. The god Hermes came along and, learning what had happened, descended into the water and brought up a golden axe, asking the man if it was his. When the woodcutter said it was not, Hermes brought up a silver axe. When the man said it was not his either, Hermes brought up the man’s original axe, and presented it to him along with the golden and silver axes. 23 The tale continues, but what is pertinent here is that the appearance of Hermes causes no awe or fear in the woodcutter, who interacts with him as matter-of-factly as he would with a human being. Similarly, in the tale of Cupid and Psyche, Psyche encountered in succession the goddesses Ceres, Venus, and Proserpina. She responded to them all as little more than very powerful females. And when a river reed addressed her, and later also a stream of water, an eagle, and a tower, she behaved as though such events were the most natural thing in the world. In the same way, humans and animals in Aesopic fables such as that of the fox and the woodcutter converse with each other totally without surprise that they are able to do so. 24 In folktales, then, the supernatural and unnatural are not at all secluded from the natural. Reality has but one dimension, somewhat as in the mythic era. Folklorists term this characteristic of folktales as a genre “one-dimensionality.” 25

Discussion of the Literature

The publication of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s Kinder- und Hausmärchen ( 1812–1815 ), with its comparative notes on folk narratives from other times and places, prompted interest among many learned persons in traditional oral tales. From around the mid- 19th century until around the mid- 20th century , folk-narrative scholars devoted themselves to documentation and historical investigation of the oral folktale. They collected tales in the field, published compilations, filed them in archives, and classified them by genre and plot. In an attempt to reconstruct the history of individual tales, they developed the so-called historic-geographic method of folktale study.

To facilitate the investigation of individual narratives, folklorists began as early as 1910 to publish indices of traditional narrative plots, termed “tale types.” Of the many such tale-type indices that have been compiled, the most extensive is Hans-Jörg Uther’s The Types of International Tales ( 2004 ). 26 Also catalogued were motifs, the small narrative units of which traditional narratives are constructed. Stith Thompson compiled the Motif-Index of Folk Literature in the 1930s and revised it in the 1950s. 27

Scholarly attention to the Greek and Roman oral tale in particular can be said to begin with the publication, in 1857 , of Wilhelm Grimm’s “The Legend of Polyphemus,” a comparative investigation of the Homeric story of Odysseus and the Cyclops Polyphemus ( Od . 9.105–542) and texts of ten similar narratives, mostly folktales, from more recent tradition. 28 Presently, classical philologists searched ancient literature for evidence of folktales and for parallels to, or analogues of, modern folktales. For example, Ludwig Friedländer published a comparative study of the tale of Cupid and Psyche and modern folktales in 1860 , which he eventually developed into a survey of the evidence for folktales in ancient Greek and Roman literature. 29 Otto Crusius found traces of folktales in ancient proverbs ( 1889 ). 30 Ludwig Radermacher surveyed folk narratives in Homer’s Odyssey ( 1915 ), and a decade later W. R. Halliday included a chapter on ancient folktales and fables in his survey of Greek and Roman folklore ( 1927 ), while H. J. Rose included a chapter on “ Märchen in Greece and Italy” in his work on Greek mythology ( 1928 ). 31 In the same decade, Wolf Aly published a study of folktales and legends in Herodotus ( 1921 ) and wrote the article on “ Märchen ” for Pauly-Wissowa’s Realencyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft ( 1928 ). 32 The main concern of classical scholars was to document the existence of folktales and of analogues of modern folktales in ancient literature, mostly by comparing ancient and modern narratives. Much of the research of folklorists and classicists was summed up by Johannes Bolte and Georg Polívka in their history of the folktale, part of their extensive commentary ( 1913–1932 ) on the Grimms’ Kinder- und Hausmärchen . 33

From the mid- 20th century onwards, the interests of folklorists shifted from diachronic to synchronic phenomena and methods. The earlier interest in the history of individual tales gave way to a focus on the structure and form of stories, prompted by the work of the Russian folklorist Vladimir Propp and others, and on contextual approaches that emphasise narrators, audiences, performance, and the process of transmission over the plot and content of texts. 34 The prestige previously enjoyed by early texts was transferred to phenomena of the present day, which can be directly observed.

In classical studies, no single research question has dominated the interests of scholars of the ancient oral tale, partly because the folktale is made up of different genres that tend to be studied by different scholars: novella scholars study novelle, fable scholars study the fable, and so on. Moreover, the techniques of modern folkloristics do not transfer well to the study of antiquity; the micro-ethnographies that characterize the performance approach are better suited to live observation than to literary study. However, comparative studies of ancient and modern stories continue to thrive, and questions about the tale of Cupid and Psyche and the origin of the fairytale continue to occupy classicists as well as folklorists. 35

Primary Texts

Hansen, William . The Book of Greek and Roman Folktales, Legends, and Myths . Princeton, NJ, and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2017.
Wright, James R. G. “Folk-Tale and Literary Technique in Cupid and Psyche .” Classical Quarterly 21 (1971): 273–284.
Zimmerman, Maaike , et al., eds. and comm. Apuleius Madaurensis: Metamorphoseon, Books IV 28–35, V and VI 1–24: The Tale of Cupid and Psyche. Text, Introduction and Commentary . Groningen, The Netherlands: Egbert Forsten, 2004.
Cataudella, Quintino . La Novella Greca: Prolegomeni e Testi in Traduzioni Originali . Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, n.d. [1956 or 1957].
Trenkner, Sophie . The Greek Novella in the Classical Period . Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1958.
Andreassi, Mario . Le Facezie del Philogelos: Barzellette Antiche e Umorismo Moderno . Lecce: Pensa Multimedia, 2004.
Baldwin, Barry , trans. and comm. The Philogelos or Laughter-Lover . Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben, 1983.
Hierocles . Philogelos , ed. R. D. Dawe . Munich and Leipzig: K. G. Saur, 2000.
Thierfelder, Andreas , ed. and comm. Philogelos: Der Lachfreund von Hierokles und Philagrios . Munich: Heimeran, 1968.
Gibbs, Laura , trans. Aesop’s Fables . Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Hausrath, August , ed. Corpus Fabularum Aesopicarum . Vol. 1, fasc. 1–2. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1959–1970.
Holzberg, Niklas . The Ancient Fable: An Introduction . Translated by Christine Jackson-Holzberg . Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002.
Perry, Ben Edwin , ed. Aesopica: A Series of Texts Relating to Aesop or Ascribed to him or Closely Connected with the Literary Tradition that Bears his Name . Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1952.
Perry, Ben Edwin , ed. and trans. Babrius and Phaedrus . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965.
van Dijk, Gert-Jan . ΑΙΝΟΙ, ΛΟΓΟΙ,ΜΥΘΟΙ ‎: Fables in Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic Greek Literature, with a Study of the Theory and Terminology of the Genre . Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1997.

Link to Digital Materials

Library Research Guide for Folklore and Mythology

Tale-Type and Motif Indices
Theory and Methods
Searching HOLLIS
Databases & Bibliographies
Encyclopedias
Dictionaries

Tale-Types & Motifs

The aarne-thompson-uther index, atu tale-type classification, how to read an atu index entry, the motif-index of folk literature, the motif-index of folk literature classification, how to read a motif-index entry, tale type and motif indices to worldwide traditions, fable indices, online resources for motifs, tale types, propp functions, fables, & mythemes.

Archives & Special Collections
Material Culture
Audiovisual Materials & Musical Scores
Requesting & Accessing Materials
Organizing and Managing Your Resarch
Learning With the Library

Tales are composed of elements called “motifs,” which are combined in any number of ways to create a plot. Many tales have the same patterns of motifs. These patterns are called “tale-types.” Identifying the building-blocks and patterns of narratives is helpful in studying, comparing, and analyzing them. For a very brief overview of this process, see: Motif Index, What it Is and What it Does from the British Columbia Folklore Society. Below are a few important definitions:

A Function or mytheme is a plot point which directs the course of the tale and appears in set orders.

A motif is the smallest definite element of a tale.

A Tale type (or tale-type) is a recurring, self-sufficient plot or group of motifs.

The Finnish scholar, Antti Aarne, compiled the first major tale-type index in 1910. The work was limited to European tales and was later expanded by, first, Stith Thompson, and, then, Hans-Jörg Uther. Stith Thompson translated and expanded Aarne’s tale-type index. His work categorized mostly European tales, with a selection of Near Eastern tales, into different general, abstracted types. His and Aarne’s work are collectively referred to as the “AT number system.” Each tale type is assigned a number identifier and a title (e.g. 510A Cinderella tale-type). In 2004, Aarne and Thompson’s tale-type system was expanded by Hans-Jörg Uther. Known as the “ATU tale-type index”, or “the ATU index” for short, this index is a standard reference in folklore studies.

The ATU index (and here ) allows researchers to identify the underlying structure of a tale and to cross-reference it with other tales from all around the world which share the same elements or themes. Each tale-type entry describes which themes and motifs comprise a specific tale-type. Motifs each have an identifying number, which can be cross-referenced with Thompson’s Motif-Index of Folk-Literature . In this way, researchers can identify similar story plots, and even vastly different tales which share motifs.

The Aaarne-Thompson-Uther tale-type index (ATU index) classifies story plots into seven broad categories. Each category is assigned a group of numbers. For example, tale-types which are “Tales of Magic” are tale-types 300 to 749. All tale-types in the index are prefaced with either “AT” or “ATU” to indicate whether they are an original tale-type outlined in Aarne and Thompson’s 1928 or 1961 index or whether they have been re-organized or created by Uther in the new 2004 index, respectively.

1-299 Animal Tales 300-749 Tales of Magic 750-849 Religious Tales 850-999 Realistic Tales 1000-1199 Tales of the Stupid Ogre (Giant, Devil) 1200-1999 Anecdotes and Jokes 2000-2399 Formula Tales

If a researcher were studying the tale Cinderella , they would find it cataloged under “Tales of Magic” in the ATU index. The story is tale-type 510 (ATU 510) or “The Persecuted Heroine”. This tale type has two variant types, ATU 510A “Cinderella” tale-type and ATU 510B “Catskin” tale-type. Each ATU index entry contains:

Tale-type title
Summary of plot
Motif references
Other tale-types with which it is often combined
Bibliography of relevant scholarship

How To Read an ATU Entry

Stith Thompson compiled a massive index of motifs found in European and Eastern folktales between 1932 and 1958. His work, The Motif-Index of Folk Literature (and here or try this online version .), is used by folklorists to identify the elements or “building blocks” which make up a tale. The index assigns a number to each motif and lists tales in which it appears. This allows researchers to identify different tales which contain the same motif, as well as the range of functions of a certain motif in tales, and is useful for comparative analysis. The limits of the index are its geographical range; it is mainly restricted to Europe, though it does recognize a number of Eastern tales. Subsequently, various scholars have created cultural or regional specific indexes to supplement and expand Thompson’s work.

The Motif-Index of Folk Literature organizes motifs into twenty-six different classes, lettered A to Z. Each motif, then, is given a letter to designate its type and a number to identify it.

A. Mythological Motifs B. Animal Motifs C. Motifs of Tabu D. Magic E. The Dead F. Marvels G. Ogres H. Tests J. The Wise and the Foolish K. Deceptions L. Reversals of Fortune M. Ordaining the Future N. Chance and Fate P. Society Q. Rewards and Punishments R. Captives and Fugitives S. Unnatural Cruelty T. Sex U. The Nature of Life V. Religion W. Traits of Character X. Humor Z. Miscellaneous Groups of Motifs

If a researcher were trying to find the slipper motif in Cinderella , they should search for “slipper” or “shoe” in the subject index which accompanies Thompson’s Motif-Index. According to the index, the word “slipper” is relevant to the H36 motif. Each entry contains:

Motif number
Motif title (and description)
Culture(s) and text(s) in which motif is found
Related motifs

How to Read a Motif-Index Entry

Tale Type & Motif Indexes (hard copy)
Tale Type & Motif Indexes (online)
Collected Tales

ATU, or, The Types of International Folktales: a Classification and Bibliography, Based on the System of Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson (Hans-Jörg Uther and Folklore Fellows, 2004) [or see alternative HOLLIS record ] Allows researchers to identify the underlying structure of a tale and to cross-reference it with other tales from all around the world which share the same elements or themes. Each tale-type entry describes which themes and motifs comprise a specific tale-type. Motifs each have an identifying number, which can be cross-referenced with Thompson’s Motif-Index of Folk-Literature . In this way, researchers can identify similar story plots, and even vastly different tales which share motifs.

Motif-Index of Folk-Literature; a Classification of Narrative Elements in Folk-Tales, Ballads, Myths, Fables, Mediaeval Romances, Exempla, Fabliaux, Jest-Books, and Local Legends (Stith Thompson, 1932) [or see alternative HOLLIS record ] Used by folklorists to identify the elements or “building blocks” which make up a tale. The index assigns a number to each motif and lists tales in which it appears. This allows researchers to identify different tales which contain the same motif, as well as the range of functions of a certain motif in tales, and is useful for comparative analysis. The limits of the index are its geographical range; it is mainly restricted to Europe, though it does recognize a number of Eastern tales. Subsequently, various scholars have created cultural or regional specific indexes to supplement and expand Thompson’s work. Note: Some of these volumes are available online via HathiTrust's record for Indiana University Studies (wherein a copy was printed); specifically, see IUS volume no. 96-97 which is available online and contains the following volumes of the Motif Index: v. 1 (A–C: Mythological, Animal, Tabu), v. 2 (D–E: Magic, The Dead) and v. 3 (F–H: Marvels, Ogres, Tests). The following IUS volumes containing Motif Index volumes are available via search-only: 100-101, 105-106, 108-112.

African Folktales with Foreign Analogues (compiled by May Augusta Klipple, 1992)

ATU-AT-Motif guide Although incomplete, a great portion of the AT and ATU classification schemes can be found on this site curated by academic librarian Michael Muchow. He has linked many of them to tales stored on the Internet Archive website.

Folk Tales Online A helpful guide to finding folk tales online, created by academic librarian Michael Muchow.

Unpacking World Folk-literature: Thompson's Motif Index, ATU's Tale Type Index, Propp's Functions and Lévi-Strauss's Structural Analysis for Folk Tales Found Around the World This site is curated by Shawn Urban and hosted at the University of Alberta. It has some overlap with Muchow's resource, above, but includes some unique items. It links to the Multilingual Folk Tale Database (MFTD). Neither is exhaustive. Note: When you see an abbreviated reference to a collection where a published tale can be found that illustrates one of Thompson's motifs, look it up in the detailed Bibliography and Abbreviations section on p. 31 (#45) of Thompson's Motif Index of Folk-Literature as published in Indiana University Studies no. 96–97, via HathiTrust.

Folklore and Mythology Electronic Texts This site is provided by retired professor D.L. Ashliman and hosted at the University of Pittsburgh. Again, there is some overlap with the other sources listed above, but some entries are unique. It is not exhaustive.

Motif-Index of Folk-Literature; a Classification of Narrative Elements in Folk-Tales, Ballads, Myths, Fables, Mediaeval Romances, Exempla, Fabliaux, Jest-Books, and Local Legends (Stith Thompson, 1932) Used by folklorists to identify the elements or “building blocks” which make up a tale. The index assigns a number to each motif and lists tales in which it appears. This allows researchers to identify different tales which contain the same motif, as well as the range of functions of a certain motif in tales, and is useful for comparative analysis. The limits of the index are its geographical range; it is mainly restricted to Europe, though it does recognize a number of Eastern tales. Subsequently, various scholars have created cultural or regional specific indexes to supplement and expand Thompson’s work. Note: Some of these volumes are available online via HathiTrust's record for Indiana University Studies (wherein a copy was printed); specifically, see IUS volume no. 96-97 which is available online and contains the following volumes of the Motif Index: v. 1 (A–C: Mythological, Animal, Tabu), v. 2 (D–E: Magic, The Dead) and v. 3 (F–H: Marvels, Ogres, Tests). The following IUS volumes containing Motif Index volumes are available via search-only: 100-101, 105-106, 108-112. Or try this link .

Multilingual Folk Tale Database Folk tales from all over this world are provided on this site, in their original language or in translation. To organize the stories and make it easier to find and compare them, the stories have been classified along the Aarne-Thompson-Uther classification, which is the established standard for folk tales. Although the database contains over 10,000 stories and translations, it contains stories exemplifying only a limited portion of the ATU classes.

See the Collections of Folktales and Worldwide Folktale Collections sub-pages of this guide (under "Books").

Perry's Index This invaluable index to fables in the Aesopic tradition is to be found in the "Indices" section of Babrius, Phaedrus. Fables. Translated by Ben Edwin Perry in the Loeb Classical Library, volume 436 (Harvard University Press: Cambridge, 1965) .

Aesopica Posteriora: Medieval and Modern Versions of Greek and Latin Fables Aims to encompass the entire European tradition of the fable by guiding the scholar topically to ancient, Medieval, and modern fables. By Gert-Jan van Dijk. With a preface by Prof. Francisco Rodríguez Adrados and an elaborate Index Fabularum at the end of the book. Many of the fables referenced can be found in Early English Books Online.

History of the Graeco-Latin Fable See volume 3 (book no. 236) of this work by Francisco Rodríguez Adrados, Gert-Jan van Dijk, and Leslie A. Ray. Volume III (book no. 236) is an Inventory and Documentation of the Graeco-Latin Fable.

Fables This 1960 edition of the 1927 translation of Aesop's fables by Emile Chambry is written in French and Ancient Greek.

Motif-Index of Folk-Literature; a Classification of Narrative Elements in Folk-Tales, Ballads, Myths, Fables, Mediaeval Romances, Exempla, Fabliaux, Jest-Books, and Local Legends (Stith Thompson, 1932) Used by folklorists to identify the elements or “building blocks” which make up a tale. The index assigns a number to each motif and lists tales in which it appears. This allows researchers to identify different tales which contain the same motif, as well as the range of functions of a certain motif in tales, and is useful for comparative analysis. The limits of the index are its geographical range; it is mainly restricted to Europe, though it does recognize a number of Eastern tales. Subsequently, various scholars have created cultural or regional specific indexes to supplement and expand Thompson’s work. Note: Some of these volumes are available online via HathiTrust's record for Indiana University Studies (wherein a copy was printed); specifically, see IUS volume no. 96-97 which is available online and contains the following volumes of the Motif Index: v. 1 (A–C: Mythological, Animal, Tabu), v. 2 (D–E: Magic, The Dead) and v. 3 (F–H: Marvels, Ogres, Tests). The following IUS volumes containing Motif Index volumes are available via search-only: 100-101, 105-106, 108-112.

MythFolklore.net Online resources compiled by Laura Gibbs, a professor of mythology & folklore at the University of Oklahoma. She earned her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature: Latin, Greek, Polish. It includes an index to Aesop's Fables that she translated. (See also, Perry's Index, above).

<< Previous: Dictionaries
Next: Archives & Special Collections >>

Except where otherwise noted, this work is subject to a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , which allows anyone to share and adapt our material as long as proper attribution is given. For details and exceptions, see the Harvard Library Copyright Policy ©2021 Presidents and Fellows of Harvard College.

History of Chinese Folk Literature pp 1–12 Cite as

What Is “Folk Literature”

Zhenduo Zheng 3
First Online: 29 October 2021

212 Accesses

Part of the Understanding China book series (UNCHI)

What is “folk literature”? It actually refers to popular literature, mass literature, and literary works rooted in folk society. In other words, folk literature is the very thing that cannot be regarded as elegant, the one not concerned by the literati but popularized in the folk. It is loved and enjoyed by the mass.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution .

Buying options

Available as PDF
Read on any device
Instant download
Own it forever
Available as EPUB and PDF
Compact, lightweight edition
Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
Free shipping worldwide - see info
Durable hardcover edition

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Bianwen (变文): A popular form of narrative literature flourished in the Tang dynasty.

Tanci (弹词): A literary form featured with story-telling to the accompaniment of the stringed instruments.

Yuefu (乐府): Folk songs and ballads popularized in the Han dynasty.

Wazi (瓦子): Also was named as Wasi (瓦肆), Goulan (勾栏), a fixed place for entertainment. It was also the main place for drama performance in the cities in the Song and Yuan dynasties, which was equivalent to the theatre today.

Pinghua (评话): A style of story-telling popularized in the Song dynasty.

Huaben (话本): A kind of story-telling style popularized in the Song and Yuan dynasties.

You Minglu (《幽冥录》): Also was named as Youminglu (《幽明录》) or Youmingji (《幽冥记》), a collection of mythical stories written by Liu Yiqing and his followers in the Southern dynasties. It was consisted of 30 volumes, and the original tex was already lost.

Yinhualu (《因话录》): A kind of notes written by Zhao Lin in the Tang dynasty. It recorded the anecdotes of the Tang people.

Jiangshi (讲史, History telling ): A kind of oral literary form popularized in the ancient folk, mainly told the stories about the rises and falls of each dynasty and the wars.

Yujiaoli (《玉娇梨》): Also was named as Shuangmei Qiyuan (《双美奇缘》), the representative of “Scholar-Beauty Romances” written by the Han persons.

Kunshanqiang (昆山腔): Also was named as Kunqiang (昆腔), the melodies originated in Kunshan, Jiangsu Province, in the Ming dynasty.

Zhugongdiao (诸宫调): A literary form featured with singing and saying and popularized in the Northern Song, Jin, and Yuan dynasties.

Baojuan (宝卷): A literary form featured with story-telling and singing, developed from Bianwen in the Tang dynasty and the sermons given by the Song monks.

Guci (鼓词): A literary form popularized in the Northern China in the Ming and Qing dynasties.

Temple literature (庙堂文学): Often referred to the odes and lyrical songs devoted to the court gatherings, sacrifice, and banquets. It also referred to the literary works sang the praises of the ruling class in general.

Shan’ge (山歌): Folk songs sung in the field during or after the work.

Preface to History of Vernacular Literature , p. 4.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

Zhenduo Zheng

You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

Copyright information

About this chapter

Cite this chapter.

Zheng, Z. (2021). What Is “Folk Literature”. In: History of Chinese Folk Literature. Understanding China. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-5445-9_1

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-5445-9_1

Published : 29 October 2021

Publisher Name : Springer, Singapore

Print ISBN : 978-981-16-5444-2

Online ISBN : 978-981-16-5445-9

eBook Packages : Literature, Cultural and Media Studies Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)

Share this chapter

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

Find a journal
Publish with us

The Express Tribune

'Preserve folk literature for children'

Posted: 5 November 2023 | Last updated: 5 November 2023

Caretaker Federal Minister for National Heritage and Culture Jamal Shah has stressed the need to establish a heritage channel under the Culture Division to preserve and promote the collection of folk literature of Pakistani languages, especially children's folk literature.

Chairing a meeting to discuss the literary folklore collected during a recent National Conference on Children's Folk Literary Heritage at the Pakistan Academy of Letters, the caretaker minister emphasised the importance of engaging children.

He pointed out that by introducing children to their environment and culture at a young age, they can make more informed decisions in life.

During the meeting, the Advisory Committee for Children's Cultural Educational Content delved into the literary folklore collected at the two-day National Conference on Children's Folk Literary Heritage. Jamal Shah said the purpose of the conference was to collect and publish children's folk literature, proverbs, stories, songs and lullabies in the form of audiobooks.

He said the National Heritage and Culture Division was diligently pursuing the project and with the cooperation of other institutions under the division, the project would be completed soon.

The meeting included the participation of the National Heritage and Culture Division Secretary Humaira Ahmed, National Education and Professional Training Additional Secretary Junaid Akhlaq, National Heritage and Culture Joint Secretary, and a representative from the Sir Memorial Trust.

Also read Folk festival opens at Lok Virsa theatre today

Separately, Punjab Arts Council Director General Syed Bilal Haider inaugurated the Punjab Pavilion at Lok Mela Islamabad on Friday. Director Waqar Ahmed and Assistant Director Muhammad Suleman also accompanied him on this occasion.

Syed Bilal Haider said on this occasion that Punjab is the land of five rivers and its culture is centuries old.

'The scope of culture is unlimited. Nations that stay connected with their culture are the ones that develop the most.'

While the purpose of culture is to connect the past with the present to realise one's identity, its purpose is also to create the best society, he added. Bilal Haider further said the promotion of regional culture is the guarantee of unity and solidarity.

'Art and culture are prominent are of paramount importance for any country and play an important role in its development and prosperity.'

He said artisans present at the Punjab Pavilion have become the centre of attention by being engrossed in the creation of their works of art.

Around 50 stalls of artisans have been decorated at the Punjab Pavilion, in which around 100 skilled craftsmen are engaged in the work. Among the artisans are Hajran Bibi Chungir Sazi from Bahawalpur, Shahada Bibi Kishda Kari, Ibrahim Alam, Asma Zahoor, Muhammad Ahmed, Zeeshan Rashid, Shah Jahan Begum, Surya Abdullah, and Abdul Rehman.

In the festival, Shaukat Dholi, who has represented Pakistan at the international level, is also entertaining visitors.

More for You

Comparing sizes: how big is the average male 'member' in your country?

Israeli demonstrators hold signs and flags during an anti-government protest in Jerusalem on November 4, 2023. AFP

'Jail now': Israelis protest outside PM Netanyahu's house as anger grows

How bad could things get if the two powers exchanged nuclear blows?

If nuclear war breaks out between the U.S. and Russia, avoid these places

Moth bean: Expert opinions, healthy portions, and downsides

All things come to an end eventually, but personal transport powered by internal combustion engines will still be with us for a few years yet.

Ranked: the largest engine made by every major car company

Tom Hanks says he made only 4 'pretty good' movies... What are your favorites?

Cricket World Cup qualification scenarios for Pakistan, Afghanistan and New Zealand

But what are they and how can you avoid them?

Science shows there are six key behaviors that kill relationships

Lamassu discovery in Iraq hails new period of archaeology in the country

Defenseless: countries that do not have armed forces

Sometimes they wear glasses... real ones!

Did you know these celebrities wear glasses?

These are the Most DANGEROUS Tourist Attractions in the Whole of the UK

Heavy rain hits parts of the UAE, with more forecast this week

Ashley Biden: her story of loss, activism, family and love

Disney trivia: How much do you know about your (childhood) favorites?

Trivia: how much do you know about Disney characters and films?

G-Dragon of BIGBANG accused of drug use for the second time

Ooredoo is the first operator in Kuwait to introduce Wi-Fi 7, ushering in a new era of connectivity for businesses

30 eye-catching cars for sale this month

The biggest betrayals in modern football

How young girls are enduring the trauma of blackmail, harassment

International Children’s Literature Celebration: Folk & Fairy Tales (Dec. 2)

Calling all educators, librarians, students and young adult literature aficionados—this event is for you!

Join the Wisconsin International Resource Consortium to learn about some exciting new children’s literature and how you might use it in your work.

Facebook Logo
Twitter Logo
Linkedin Logo

Press release

55 new cities join the UNESCO Creative Cities Network on World Cities Day

The new members of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network are:

Asaba – Film
Ashgabat – Design
Banja Luka – Music
Battambang – Gastronomy
Bissau – Music
Bolzano – Music
Bremen – Literature
Buffalo City – Literature
Bukhara – Crafts and Folk Art
Bydgoszcz – Music
Caen – Media Arts
Caracas – Music
Casablanca – Media Arts
Castelo Branco – Crafts and Folk Art
Cetinje – Design
Chaozhou – Gastronomy
Chiang Rai – Design
Chongqing – Design
Concepción – Music
Da Lat – Music
Fribourg – Gastronomy
Gangneung – Gastronomy
Granada [1] – Design
Gwalior – Music
Herakleion – Gastronomy
Hobart – Literature
Hoi An – Crafts and Folk Art
Iasi – Literature
Iloilo City – Gastronomy
Ipoh – Music
Kathmandu – Film
Kozhikode – Literature

Kutaisi – Literature

Mexicali – Music

Montecristi – Crafts and Folk Art

Montreux – Music

Nkongsamba – Gastronomy

Novi Sad – Media Arts

Okayama – Literature

Ouarzazate – Film

Oulu – Media Arts

Penedo – Film

Rio de Janeiro – Literature

Şanlıurfa – Music

Suphanburi – Music

Surakarta – Crafts and Folk Art

Taif – Literature

Toulouse – Music

Tukums – Literature

Ulaanbaatar – Crafts and Folk Art

Umngeni Howick – Crafts and Folk Art

Valencia – Design

Varaždin – Music

Veliky Novgorod – Music

Vicente Lopez – Film

The city of Lyon, Creative City of Media Arts since 2008, has been granted a status of a Creative City of Literature, following its request to change creative field.

Newly designated cities will cooperate with Network members to strengthen their resilience the face of evolving threats such as climate change, rising inequality, as well as rapid urbanization, with 68% of the world’s population projected to live in urban areas by 2050 [2] .

“The cities in our Creative Cities Network are leading the way when it comes to enhancing access to culture and galvanizing the power of creativity for urban resilience and development,” says Audrey Azoulay, UNESCO Director-General.

An upcoming policy paper – “The added value of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network at local, national and international level” – will testify to the leading role played by cities towards the achievement of the 2030 Agenda, while demonstrating ways in which UNESCO supports the UCCN members by fostering dialogue, peer-to-peer learning and collaboration.

The newly designated Creative Cities are invited to participate in the 2024 UCCN Annual Conference (1 - 5 July 2024) in Braga, Portugal, under the theme “Bringing Youth to the table for the next decade”

[1] Granada (Nicaragua)

[2] https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/2018-revision-of-world-urbanization-prospects.html

Press contact

Phone: +33145682293

More on this subject

Other recent press release

XIV UCCN Annual Conference postponed due to COVID-19 outbreak

IMAGES

PPT
PPT
PPT
PPT
PPT
Folk literature 1

VIDEO

Aksharam
FOLK LITERATURE: MYTHOLOGY AND FOLKLORE II CBB
ڈاکٹر نجیبہ عارف کی تقریر speech of Dr Najiba Arif chairperson Pakistan academy of letters2
Growth of Folklore Studies in India (in hindi) || MEG-16 || Indian Folk Literature ||
Literary Terms Defined and Described 77: Parable #poetry #songs #love
Literary technique Meaning

COMMENTS

Folk literature
folk literature, also called folklore or oral tradition, the lore (traditional knowledge and beliefs) of cultures having no written language. It is transmitted by word of mouth and consists, as does written literature, of both prose and verse narratives, poems and songs, myths, dramas, rituals, proverbs, riddles, and the like.Nearly all known peoples, now or in the past, have produced it.
Folklore
Folklore is the whole of oral traditions shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture. This includes tales, myths, legends, proverbs, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions. They include material culture, such as traditional building styles common to the group.Folklore also includes customary lore, taking actions for folk beliefs, and the forms and rituals of celebrations ...
Folklore
Folklore is a collection of fictional stories about animals and people, of cultural myths, jokes, songs, tales, and even quotes. It is a description of culture, which has been passed down verbally from generation to generation, though many are now in written form. Folklore is also known as "folk literature," or "oral traditions.".
Folk Literature
Folk Literature includes folk narratives (fables, folktales, legends, fairy tales, and storytelling); folk poetry (oral poetry, ballads, epics).Works on folklore and literature are also on this page. Works on myth are found in a separate section. Tale type and motif-indexes also have a tab to themselves.
What Is "Folk Literature"
What is "folk literature"? It actually refers to popular literature, mass literature, and literary works rooted in folk society. In other words, folk literature is the very thing that cannot be regarded as elegant, the one not concerned by the literati but popularized in the folk.
Folk literature
Definition: Folk or traditional literature is the collection of tales passed from generation to generation and from the old to the young by word of mouth (also called the oral tradition). Folk literature is believed to be people's efforts to organize their experiences into meaningful patterns. Folk literature includes fairy tales, myths ...
Folklore Literature Definition, Characteristics & Examples
Folk literature is inextricably linked to the fickle nature of human faculties, which means that regardless of how well folk literature is preserved, it will inevitably change over time. Sociality
Folk tale
Other articles where folk tale is discussed: folk literature: Folktale: The oral fictional tale, from whatever ultimate origin, is practically universal both in time and place. Certain peoples tell very simple stories and others tales of great complexity, but the basic pattern of tale-teller and audience is found everywhere and as far back as…
Folk Literature: Definition & Books
Folk literature is a genre dedicated to preserving oral traditions. This heritage of vocally transmitted songs and stories is known collectively as folklore. Folklore is a cultural group effort ...
What Is Folklore? Meaning, Types, and Examples
Folklore is passed through generations by word of mouth. Learn the definition and types of folklore as well as examples of folklore from around the world.
The Study of Folk Literature
crafts" apart from the literary art and craft of the unlettered; he will probably not in-sist on culture pattern description for folk literature any more than the student of written literature will demand a unitary economic or sociological context for Shake-speare; he will probably prefer to study fictive material, literature in the true sense,
What is Folk Literature? Introduction to Folk Literature
Some facts and figures about Folk Literature. Included here are some distinguishing factors between Mythology and Folklore as two of Folk literature's' genre...
Folktale
Wonder Tale. The kind of tale that is commonly known as the fairytale is termed magic tale or wonder tale by folk-narrative scholars, since magic and an atmosphere of wonder are characteristic of the genre, whereas fairies appear infrequently. In the familiar plot of a wonder tale, a young protagonist sets out into the world, encounters the supernatural, overcomes various obstacles, and ...
Library Research Guide for Folklore and Mythology
A helpful guide to finding folk tales online, created by academic librarian Michael Muchow. Unpacking World Folk-literature: Thompson's Motif Index, ATU's Tale Type Index, Propp's Functions and Lévi-Strauss's Structural Analysis for Folk Tales Found Around the World This site is curated by Shawn Urban and hosted at the University of Alberta.
(PDF) Folk Literature
Folk Literature . Compiled by: Edgar R. Eslit . Folklore, general term for the verbal, spiritual, and m aterial aspects of a ny culture that a re . transmitted orally, by observation, o r by ...
Folk Tales: Definition, Characteristics, Types & Examples
Folk tales usually: Feature regular people: Our English word 'folk' comes from the German word volk, meaning 'people.'. So, as you might guess, folk tales are stories about everyday life and the ...
PDF What Is "Folk Literature"
What Is "Folk Literature" I What is "folk literature"? It actually refers to popular literature, mass literature, and literary works rooted in folk society. In other words, folk literature is the very thing that cannot be regarded as elegant, the one not concerned by the literati but popularized in the folk. It is loved and enjoyed by ...
Folk music
folk music, type of traditional and generally rural music that originally was passed down through families and other small social groups. Typically, folk music, like folk literature, lives in oral tradition; it is learned through hearing rather than reading.It is functional in the sense that it is associated with other activities, and it is primarily rural in origin.
What Is "Folk Literature"
What is "folk literature"? It actually refers to popular literature, mass literature, and literary works rooted in folk society. In other words, folk literature is the very thing that cannot ...
'Preserve folk literature for children'
Jamal Shah said the purpose of the conference was to collect and publish children's folk literature, proverbs, stories, songs and lullabies in the form of audiobooks.
International Children's Literature Celebration: Folk & Fairy Tales
International Children's Literature Celebration: Folk & Fairy Tales (Dec. 2) Posted on November 4, 2023. Calling all educators, librarians, students and young adult literature aficionados—this event is for you! Join the Wisconsin International Resource Consortium to learn about some exciting new children's literature and how you might use ...
55 new cities join the UNESCO Creative Cities Network on World Cities
The new members of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network are: Asaba - Film. Ashgabat - Design. Banja Luka - Music. Battambang - Gastronomy. Bissau - Music. Bolzano - Music. Bremen - Literature. Buffalo City - Literature.
What Is a Foil in Literature? Definition and Examples
A foil is a character who contrasts with the protagonist, emphasizing the protagonist's attributes. An antagonist is a character who opposes the protagonist, serving as an adversary that the protagonist must struggle against or overcome. Oftentimes, an antagonist pushes the story's plot forward, while a foil contributes to character ...
Page couldn't load • Instagram
682 likes, 22 comments - reachvirasat on October 24, 2023: "Virasat 2023 Official Schedule of Events. Virasat is 15-day-long festival, which is recognized a..."