Perspectives on the Jack Tales and Other North American Märchen

by Carl Lindahl

Overview

This volume is about North American Märchen, a vernacular art form that is often strangely ignored or misconstrued. At the same time, the vitality and appeal of the genre are evidenced by its persistent presentation as written literature. The essays in this volume reexamine common assumptions about "magic" tales and their tellers, reconsidering the performance, collection, transcription, publication, and interpretation of narratives that continue to live orally—especially in the private realm—as one mechanism of intergenerational communication or as a symbolic expression of worldview.

In addition to four interpretive essays, six segments focus on storytellers and their transcribed narratives, accompanied by introductions that place them in context. Some segments compare editing practices or narrative styles; others represent the first publication of contemporary narratives or tales that have long lain in archives, unheard and unavailable. All attest to the skill of the tellers and the artistry of their creations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781878318756
Publisher:	Indiana University Press
Publication date:	11/22/2001
Series:	Special Publications of the Folklore Institute, Indiana University , #6
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Carl Lindahl is Professor of English at the University of Houston.

Table of Contents

	Foreword	viii
	A Tale of Verbal Economy: "Stiff Dick"	1
	Introduction: Representing and Recovering the British- and Irish-American Marchen	7
	Two Tellings of "Merrywise": 1949 and 2000	39
	Two Versions of "Rawhead and Bloodybones" from the Farmer-Muncy Family	55
	Sounding a Shy Tradition: Oral and Written Styles of American Mountain Marchen	68
	Two Transcriptions of "Jack and the Bull," by Polly Johnson	99
	Storybook Style: "Jack and the Green Man"	106
	Is Old Jack Really Richard Chase?	111
	A Model of Appropriate Behavior? "The Ship That Sailed on Land and Water"	139
	Jack and His Masters: Real Worlds and Tale Worlds in Newfoundland Folktales	149
	In Memoriam: Herbert Halpert	171
	Abstracts	175
	Contributors	177