Morphology of the Folktale (Publications of the American Folklore Society) (Paperback)

~ V. Propp (Author), Louis A. Wagner (Editor), Laurence Scott (Translator)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Propp's work is seminal...[and], now that it is available in a new edition, should be even more valuable to folklorists who are directing their attention to the form of the folktale, especially to those structural characteristics which are common to many entries coming from even different cultures. (Choice )

Review

Morphology will in all probability be regarded by future generations as one of the major theoretical breakthroughs in the field of folklore in the twentieth century. (Alan Dundes )

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Product Details

• Paperback: 158 pages
• Publisher: University of Texas Press; 2 edition (June 1968)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0292783760
• ISBN-13: 978-0292783768
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #72,083 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #28 in	Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > Mythology > Folklore
  #73 in	Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Fairy Tales

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ian Myles Slater on: Brilliant, But Hard Going, November 10, 2003

By	Ian M. Slater "aylchanan" (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This is an attempt to work out the underlying structural patterns (types of characters, what they do, how they are ordered) of Russian folktales, based on classic collections made in the nineteenth-century. If you are fortunate enough to have read a large collection of such stories -- preferably in translation, not "retold by ..." -- you will soon see the point of Propp's argument. Other European, and some non-European, traditions provide an almost equally good starting point, although the examples often are not so close as to be immediately convincing. Ideally, "Morphology of the Folktale" would be bound with at least a selection of the Russian folktales Propp analyzes, but this does not seem likely to happen.

Taken by itself, however, Propp's exploration is going to seem both dry and confusing. Try to imagine a book about the five-act structure of Shakespeare's tragedies being read by someone who had never seen or read a play before, and you may understand the problem.

Although Propp's exposition sometimes seems labored, he presents a convincing case that at least some oral prose narratives are built up of a stock of situations and events which can be slightly reordered, multiplied, and otherwise complicated, but amount to a "language" (a vocabulary, grammar, and syntax) of story-telling. This puts a new light on the problem of the distribution of folktales, and how they develop variants, two of the great issues of folklore studies in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Despite its origins in a single body of oral literature, Propp's methods have been applied to other literature with known or suspected oral roots, sometimes with slightly contradictory results. I know of at least two different Proppian analyses of "Beowulf," for example. This is due at least in part to Propp's attempt to introduce fine divisions between similar plot elements, which, again, seem to work better with his source material than with other groups of stories. (And "Beowulf" has long been recognized to include elements later found in European fairy tales, so the possibility of applying Propp's structures was more intriguing than revolutionary.)

In "Feud in the Icelandic Saga" (1983), Jesse Byock reviewed efforts to apply Propp's methods to the Sagas of the Icelanders, another body of prose literature supposed to be grounded in oral techniques. He argued that a different approach is needed to their formally realistic stories about personalities, and the functioning of society; which does not diminish the validity of Propp's approach to the wonder-tale.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A systematic diagram of the Russian folktale., November 30, 1998

By A Customer

This is the first work to systematically characterize and describe a corpus of folktales. It includes a list of possible plot twists, in their correct chronological order for any story, and numerous examples from actual Russian fairy tales. This translation in particular reads well and makes a point of not departing from the text's literal meaning in any significant way. I would highly recommend this work for anyone interested in folktales or oral literature in general.

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This seminal work is excellent, September 28, 1999

By A Customer

This seminal work is essential for an understanding of structuralist theory and the theory of folklore. It differs from the psychological view of the folktale in its descriptive ability. This theory is based on objective description and sytagmatic conjunction and complementation. Because of that, it is more applicable and flexible than any psychological dissection. Also, two people will reach roughly the same conclusions with this method- something impossible with a psychological approach. This is excellent for anyone interested in attacking the down and dirty working parts of a narrative.