On the Metahistorical Roots of the Fairytale

Western Folklore, Fall 2002 by Somoff, Victoria

In the true folktale world, God needs not to be troubled to put everything in order, but this order comes about by itself.

Max Luthi

One of the aspects of genre theory is concerned with the problem of the border between two different genres that share some common features. It would not be exaggerating to state that this particular aspect becomes crucially important when differentiating myth and folktale-due to the undeniable similarities, acknowledged by folklore scholars since the brothers Grimm-between these two genres.

The difficulty in drawing a border between myth and folktale has led to various cases of misunderstanding in folklore theory. Probably, the most famous is the Propp/Levi- Strauss debate where one of the points of disagreement is concerned with the genre of the material under study. According to Levi-Strauss, the difference between myth and folktale is not qualitative but rather a "difference of degree": "Tales are miniature myths, in which the same oppositions are transposed to a smaller scale, and that is what makes them difficult to study in the first place" (Levi-Strauss 1976:30); that's why myths rather than folktales (fairytales in Propp's case) are the primary choice for structural analysis.

Propp defends himself but his reply, as distinct from his arguments on Levi-Strauss's other charges, is based on the general observation of a scholar's right to decide what to study and on the nature of the process of theoretical thinking: "According to Levi- Strauss, a scholar first finds a method and then begins to think where to apply it; in my case it has been applied, regrettably, to wondertales,1 an area of little interest to the philosopher. But things never happen so in science; nor did they happen this way in my case" (Propp 1984:9).

Propp's pathos is justified; however, to the real question posed by Levi-Strauss-is it possible to apply the morphological sequence discovered in fairytales to myths-Propp himself gives an affirmative answer. "There are myths based on the same morphological and compositional system as the wondertale. . . . At times they correspond, down to minute details, to the compositional system studied in Morphology of the Folktale. In some cases myth and wondertales have the same form" (Propp 1984:79). But if the structure-although only in some cases-is the same for both genres, Levi-Strauss's reproach makes sense: Propp's discovery of the morphological model is to a certain degree accidental regarding the genre of the analyzed material and could have been made on the material of myths as well.

Thirty years later, Alan Dundes suggests "a form of constructive mediation" between the two great scholars who are "talking past one another" (Dundes 1997). As far as Levi- Strauss's argument regarding Propp's choice of fairytales instead of myths is concerned, Dundes is obviously on Propp's side: "The idea that a professional folklorist, a professor of folklore, did not know enough about myths to analyze them is, of course, preposterous, and it should come as no surprise to learn that Propp upon reading Levi- Strauss's review was insulted by the insinuation that he knew nothing about myth" (42). Dundes turns the question asked by the French scholar back to him; particularly, he demonstrates that the binary oppositions that, according to Levi-Strauss, determine the sequence of mythic events are found-by Levi-Strauss himself-in folktales as well as in myths. "If folktales are constructed on weaker oppositions than those found in myth, why did Levi-Strauss choose folktales rather than myths to demonstrate his theory of binary oppositions? It seems to me that Levi-Strauss is hoisted by his own petard! The obvious answer is that binary oppositions are just as strong in folktales as they are in myth" (46).

The conflict is, indeed, mediated because Levi-Strauss's own discovery appears in this perspective as being indifferent-as well as Propp's discovery of the morphological model-to the genre of the material under study and, therefore, might have been made, and, in fact, according to Dundes, has been made, on the material of both genres: "This is not to say that Levi-Strauss does not analyze some myths in Mythologiques. The important point is that he analyzes both myths and folktales indiscriminately" (Dundes 1997:6. Italics are Dundee's).

The question-as it is supposed to be after a successful mediation-remains and may now be approached and readdressed on new grounds: what are the structural distinctions between myth and folktale? If neither Levi-Strauss nor Propp can account for and discriminate myths from folktales, are there any structural distinctions at all?

There is no doubt among fblklorists that the formal features of a text should be taken into account when defining a genre. Disagreements occur over the use of formal features to differentiate one genre from another. For example, in his survey of folkloristic theories of genre Lauri Honko is openly skeptical about the "great hopes of structuralism" (Honko 1989) to determine the specifics of a genre. "Structural analysis has been applied across genre and cultural borders in the same way as the historical-geographical research method once was. Research has increasingly shown that the same structural patterns are to be found in products belonging to different genres" (Honko 1989:22). It comes as no surprise that examples of "the same structural patterns" often come from comparing myths and folktales. According to Dan Ben-Amos: