Jack in Two Worlds: Contemporary North American Tales and Their Tellers / Edition 1

by William B. McCarthy

Overview

The "Jack" known to all of us from "Jack and the Beanstalk" is the hero of a cycle of tales brought to this country from the British Isles. Jack in Two Worlds is a unique collection that brings together eight of these stories as transcribed from actual performances by tellers and eight interpretive essays by leading folktale scholars.

The "two worlds" in the book's title refer to the Jack tales' popularity first among traditional Appalachian taletellers and now among storytelling revivalists. The tellers included in this volume represent both worlds. Unlike previous collections of Jack tales, in which the stories were heavily revised and rewritten, the tales in this volume have been transcribed verbatim and are presented in a format that preserves much of the oral quality of the taletellers' craft. The result is a body of richly nuanced tales that can be read with pleasure both by scholars who are studying the Jack tale tradition and by general readers who love a good story.

The taletellers are Stewart Cameron, Donald Davis, Ray Hicks, Bonelyn Lugg Kyofski, Maud Long, Frank Proffitt, Jr., Leonard Roberts, and Marshall Ward.

The essayists are Bill Ellis, Carl Lindahl, William Bernard McCarthy, W. F. H. Nicolaisen, Cheryl Oxford, Joseph Daniel Sobol, Kay Stone, Ruth Stotter, and Kenneth A. Thigpen.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807844434
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	07/29/1994
Series:	Publications of the American Folklore Society Series
Edition description:	Tales edited by William Bernard McCarthy, Cheryl Oxford, and Joseph Daniel Sobol; Publications of the American Folklore Society
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.76(d)

About the Author

William Bernard McCarthy, professor of English at Pennsylvania State University, DuBois Campus, is author of The Ballad Matrix: Personality, Milieu, and the Oral Tradition.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

The stories presented in Jack in Two Worlds and the modes of folklore analysis employed . . . form a noteworthy and unique accomplishment in folk narrative scholarship. [This book is] ideal as a text for courses both in general folklore and the folktale.—Kenneth S. Goldstein, University of Pennsylvania



All serious students of folklore, narrative and tale telling will find this volume an absolute MUST.—Come-All-Ye



This collection of essays and tales enriches our understanding of folklore through its examination of traditional and revivalist storytelling and the complex relations between the two. . . . An important book for any student of folktale and storytelling and would make a useful supplementary text in a course on oral narrative.—Ethnologies



Scholars will find this juxtaposition of tales and essays useful, and anything that sustains and spreads these vibrant stories should be applauded.—Library Journal



These tale texts represent the range of the genre well, include kinds of tales not appearing in print before, and reflect upon one another productively. [The book's] interpretive essays broach a wide range of perspectives, approaches, and issues, and they advance and foreground important ideas about Jack tales and tale telling.—Thomas McGowan, editor of the North Carolina Folklore Journal

Editorial Reviews

A noteworthy and unique accomplishment in folk narrative scholarship.

Kenneth S. Goldstein, University of Pennsylvania

All serious students of folklore, narrative and tale telling will find this volume an absolute MUST.

"Come-All-Ye"

"A noteworthy and unique accomplishment in folk narrative scholarship.

Kenneth S. Goldstein, University of Pennsylvania"

"All serious students of folklore, narrative and tale telling will find this volume an absolute MUST.

"Come-All-Ye""

An important book for any student of folktale and storytelling.

"Ethnologies"

Scholars will find this juxtaposition of tales and essays useful.

"Library Journal"

From the Publisher

Richard Chase made the``Jack'' tales famous, but also-it turns out-altered them. (Jack, of ``Jack and the Beanstalk'' fame, is featured in a series of tales brought here from the British Isles.) The nine scholarly contributors here are clear about collecting norms and about the relation between the tale's history and the source family's or community's history. These essays bring the tellers, their world, and their styles to life. They combine insights into the tales and their traditional analog, especially in Britain, with attention to ``revivalist'' tellings. Fidelity to features of performance (e.g., transcription in lines to mark rhythm) inhibits casual reading, but it does reflect contemporary emphasis on individual creativity in process and performance within the tradition. Scholars will find this juxtaposition of tales and essays useful, and anything that sustains and spreads these vibrant stories should be applauded.-Patricia Dooley, Univ. of Washington Lib. Sch., Seattle

Library Journal