Between the Cracks of History: Essays on Teaching and Illustrating Folklore Page: 4
284 p. : ill., ports. ; 24 cm.View a full description of this book.
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
Abernethy
did this defining exercise at a TFS meeting twenty-five years ago,
and after all the academic verbiage that generation of pedants
flung about, Martha Emmons rose up in her tutorial majesty.
She disgustedly looked at the members and the complicated
mountain we had made out of a simple mole hill and said, "Folk-
lore is what the word says it is! Folk is the people and lore is the
learning. It is the learning of the people." And that is pretty close.
The "folk" is the common denominator among a particular social
group, and the "lore" is the traditional learning which the group
passes along within itself. As a consequence, I went back to my
class notes and boiled my definition down to "Folklore is the
traditional knowledge of a culture." And I still use that defini-
tion.
Of course, when you make a university degree program out
of folklore (as they did at Penn, Indiana, and UT), you cannot
define it as simply as Martha did. Or if you are simply teaching a
course-or talking to a reporter-you need something more im-
pressive.
When I began teaching folklore around 1960 there were no
texts, to speak of. Russell & Reaver would send you their mim-
eographed text and Kenneth and Mary Clarke had a paperback
called Introducing Folklore, but both were incomplete and unsat-
isfactory. It was not until 1968 when Jan Brunvand published
his The Study of American Folklore that English-teachers-turned-
folklorists had a college-level folklore textbook with definitions
and illustrations to help them in their exploration of that aca-
demic wilderness.
I have since written my own folklore textbook, and I have
been working over Brunvand's definition for twenty years, and
what I tell my students when I am defining folklore is essentially
my simplified definition ("Folklore is the traditional knowledge
of a culture") and Jan Brunvand's definition through character-
istics. And I use John Minton's mnemonic guide to remember
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This book can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Related Items
Other items on this site that are directly related to the current book.
Between the Cracks of History: Essays on Teaching and Illustrating Folklore (Book)
Volume of twenty-one essays about folklore in Texas, including essays about police burials, railroads, graffiti, folk music, dance halls, and other folklore. The index begins on page 279.
Relationship to this item: (Has Format)
Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Book.
Abernethy, Francis Edward. Between the Cracks of History: Essays on Teaching and Illustrating Folklore, book, 1997; Denton, Texas. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc38308/m1/18/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Press.