What is folklore in literature? Folklore is oral folk art. Features of folklore Folklore is a “genetic” element of worldview

Literature 5th grade. A textbook-reader for schools with in-depth study of literature. Part 1 Team of authors

About what folklore is and about the poetic wisdom of the people

We have already talked to you about how poetry began to emerge. Explaining natural disasters as the wrath of the gods, people also thought about how to win them over to their side: not only to avoid their wrath, but to achieve their help (after all, the power of the gods or spirits seemed enormous to them). And so people decided to share their spoils with the gods: they put part of the collected roots, honey, caught fish, and meat into a fire and burned it. And so that the gods understood that it was they who were making the sacrifice, the priest and women of the tribe accompanied the ritual with singing addressed to those for whom the sacrifice was intended.

Imagine the ritual of sacrifice after a successful hunt, when meat is placed on the hearth to be sacrificed to the spirits of the forest. The fire was burning and smoke was rising from the meat. The women, standing around the hearth, sang, begging the spirits of the forest to bestow their mercy on the people of the tribe. One of the women began the appeal, and when the right words did not come to her mind, the song was picked up by another, while the third repeated what the first two said in order to remember the complex words and learn to pronounce them herself.

So the people of the tribe composed a song praising the spirits of the forest, and decided to sing it every time, in gratitude for a successful hunt, they began to burn pieces of meat on the folded hearth to feed the spirits. It was ritual song. They sang it not to have fun, but to perform a ritual: to call spirits from the forest, feed them and ask for help. Then people composed other ritual songs and sang them at weddings, funerals, before sowing and harvesting, during droughts and on many other occasions.

Ritual songs served magic. With the help of magical actions (singing, dancing, making sacrifices) people wanted to influence nature, change it and their lives. Together with songs, they were used for magical actions. incantations, spells, lamentations.

To explain incomprehensible natural phenomena, people began to invent myths. They began to compose hymns in honor of the gods, created ritual poetry, but they also composed stories about heroes, people who became famous for their deeds. These were legends.

A legend is a story about a real person or historical event, but with such fantastic additions that a poetic artistic world is created in which truth and fiction merge and intertwine so closely that they can no longer be distinguished.

And now I want to draw attention to one very important feature, how poetry was born. You, I hope, remember that this word refers not only to poetry? Since there was originally no written language, stories were passed down orally from one person to another. Often the new narrator changed something in the story, added something of his own, striving for the greatest expressiveness and fascination of the narrative. At the same time, no one cared about preserving the name of the very first storyteller who came up with a fascinating story.

Thus, poetic works transmitted orally achieved artistic perfection as a result of the collective creativity of many storytellers, or storytellers.

Only those stories were preserved and passed on from person to person and from generation to generation that were particularly entertaining, had artistic merit, and brought up the best qualities in a person.

Since the storytellers were ordinary people, they saved and passed on to each other only those stories that corresponded to their ideas about beauty, goodness, honesty, justice and nobility of soul. In their oral histories, they sought to realize their dream of a better future. All these stories, songs and myths contained national ideal.

The fact is that, when creating an artistic world, the author proceeds from the idea of what, in his opinion, a person’s happy life on earth should be like. It is this idea of a better life and good people that is called ideal.

An ideal may be similar among a group of people, but it may excite the same admiration among all people at a certain stage of historical development. If an ideal suits all people, it is called national.

A type of poetry created on the basis of a national ideal by the collective creativity of many storytellers and existing in the form of oral stories or songs is called oral folk poetry, or folklore.

Folklore also reflects the people's idea of the world in which man lives, and of man himself. The artistic world of works of oral folk poetry contains both the characteristic features of real reality and a fantastic idea of the ideal world. Works of folklore are extremely diverse. There is no area of human activity that is not reflected in oral creativity.

It is from folklore that all literature developed. But when writing arose and copyrighted works appeared, folklore continued to exist, develop and influence literature.

All nations have oral folk poetry. It still exists. In addition to the common features inherent in the folklore works that I told you about, the folklore of each nation also has its own unique characteristics.

So, you now know that each work contains its own artistic world, which can be compared to a conventional country. This is a very important comparison. Think for yourself: each country has its own territory, inhabited by one or more peoples, these peoples have their own language, the country has its own laws, its own form of government.

The art world is very similar to such a country. The action of the work takes place in a certain space, which may resemble your land, or may be completely fantastic: magical trees can grow here and monstrous dragons can hide in caves. In the work you may meet people who are very similar to your friends, or there may be aliens, fairy-tale or mythical creatures. You can read different books: in one, a criminal is wanted who has violated the laws of your country, in another, the king threatens to cut off the hero’s head if he does not fulfill the king’s orders.

Listen to me carefully: now I will tell you another secret of our magic. Have you noticed that, having read only the first lines of a work, you often already know on what land the action takes place and who can and who cannot appear in this book? For example: “In a certain kingdom, in a certain state...” Did you recognize it? After such a beginning, you are ready to hear about Koshchei the Immortal and the Sword of Kladenets. The fact is that in poetry there are genres.

A genre is a certain territory and certain inhabitants of the artistic world, its boundaries and its laws. The genre requires both the author and the reader to respect and understand its features. There are genres that can tell stories about many characters and contain many events (for example, a fairy tale), and there are also those that convey only one fleeting feeling (for example, a lyric poem). Genre often forces the author to use a certain form of convention (life-like or fantasy), although sometimes it allows them to be combined. It is enough for me to name you the most common genres of folklore for you to be convinced that each of them quite clearly defines the boundaries of the conventional artistic world. You are probably already familiar with such folklore genres as fairy tales, legends, jokes... In the future we will look at various genres, but for now try to understand and remember.

Genre is the similar features of the artistic world in a number of works, determined by the peculiarities of the artistic conventions of these works.

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Folklore(folk-lore) is an international term of English origin, first introduced into science in 1846 by the scientist William Toms. Literally translated, it means “folk wisdom”, “folk knowledge” and denotes various manifestations of folk spiritual culture.

Other terms have also become established in Russian science: folk poetry, folk poetry, folk literature. The name “oral creativity of the people” emphasizes the oral nature of folklore in its difference from written literature. The name “folk poetic creativity” indicates artistry as a sign by which a folklore work is distinguished from beliefs, customs and rituals. This designation puts folklore on a par with other types of folk art and fiction. 1

Folklore is complex, synthetic art. His works often combine elements of various types of art - verbal, musical, theatrical. It is studied by various sciences - history, psychology, sociology, ethnology (ethnography) 2. It is closely connected with folk life and rituals. It is no coincidence that the first Russian scientists approached folklore broadly, recording not only works of verbal art, but also recording various ethnographic details and the realities of peasant life. Thus, the study of folklore was for them a unique area of national studies 3 .

The science that studies folklore is called folkloristics. If literature is understood not only as written artistic creativity, but as verbal art in general, then folklore is a special branch of literature, and folkloristics is thus part of literary criticism.

Folklore is verbal oral creativity. It has the properties of the art of words. In this way he is close to literature. However, it has its own specific features: syncretism, traditionality, anonymity, variability and improvisation.

The prerequisites for the emergence of folklore appeared in the primitive communal system with the beginning of the formation of art. The ancient art of words was characterized utility- the desire to practically influence nature and human affairs.

The oldest folklore was in syncretic state(from the Greek word synkretismos - connection). A syncretic state is a state of unity, indivisibility. Art was not yet separated from other types of spiritual activity; it existed in conjunction with other types of spiritual consciousness. Later, the state of syncretism was followed by the separation of artistic creativity, along with other types of social consciousness, into an independent field of spiritual activity.

Folklore works anonymous. Their author is the people. Any of them is created on the basis of tradition. At one time V.G. Belinsky wrote about the specifics of a folklore work: there are no “famous names, because the author of literature is always a people. No one knows who composed his simple and naive songs, in which the internal and external life of a young people or tribe was so artlessly and vividly reflected. And he moves on a song from generation to generation, from generation to generation; and it changes over time: sometimes they shorten it, sometimes they lengthen it, sometimes they remake it, sometimes they combine it with another song, sometimes they compose another song in addition to it - and then poems come out of the songs, of which only the people can call themselves the author." 4

Academician D.S. is certainly right. Likhachev, who noted that there is no author in a folklore work not only because information about him, if he existed, has been lost, but also because he falls out of the very poetics of folklore; it is not needed from the point of view of the structure of the work. In folklore works there may be a performer, a storyteller, a storyteller, but there is no author or writer as an element of the artistic structure itself.

Traditional succession covers large historical periods - entire centuries. According to academician A.A. Potebny, folklore arises “from memorable sources, that is, it is transmitted from memory from mouth to mouth as far as memory lasts, but it has certainly passed through a significant layer of popular understanding” 5 . Each bearer of folklore creates within the boundaries of generally accepted tradition, relying on predecessors, repeating, changing, and supplementing the text of the work. In literature there is a writer and a reader, and in folklore there is a performer and a listener. “Works of folklore always bear the stamp of time and the environment in which they lived for a long time, or “existed.” For these reasons, folklore is called mass folk art. It has no individual authors, although there are many talented performers and creators who are perfect mastering generally accepted traditional techniques of saying and singing. Folklore is directly folk in content - that is, in the thoughts and feelings expressed in it. Folklore is also folk in style - that is, in the form of conveying the content. Folklore is folk in origin, in all respects and the properties of traditional figurative content and traditional stylistic forms." 6 This is the collective nature of folklore. Traditionality- the most important and basic specific property of folklore.

Any folklore work exists in large quantities options. Variant (lat. variantis - changing) - each new performance of a folklore work. Oral works had a mobile, variable nature.

A characteristic feature of a folklore work is improvisation. It is directly related to the variability of the text. Improvisation (Italian improvvisazione - unforeseen, suddenly) - the creation of a folklore work or its parts directly in the process of performance. This feature is more characteristic of lamentations and crying. However, improvisation did not contradict tradition and was within certain artistic boundaries.

Taking into account all these signs of a folklore work, we present an extremely brief definition of folklore given by V.P. Anikin: “folklore is the traditional artistic creativity of the people. It equally applies to oral, verbal, and other visual arts, both to ancient creativity and to new ones created in modern times and created in our days.” 7

Folklore, like literature, is the art of words. This gives grounds to use literary terms: epic, lyric, drama. They are usually called childbirth. Each genus covers a group of works of a certain type. Genre- type of artistic form (fairy tale, song, proverb, etc.). This is a narrower group of works than the genus. Thus, by genus we mean a way of depicting reality, by genre - a type of artistic form. The history of folklore is the history of changes in its genres. They are more stable in folklore compared to literary ones; genre boundaries in literature are wider. New genre forms in folklore do not arise as a result of the creative activity of individuals, as in literature, but must be supported by the entire mass of participants in the collective creative process. Therefore, their change does not occur without the necessary historical grounds. At the same time, genres in folklore are not unchanged. They arise, develop and die, and are replaced by others. So, for example, epics arise in Ancient Rus', develop in the Middle Ages, and in the 19th century they are gradually forgotten and die out. As living conditions change, genres are destroyed and consigned to oblivion. But this does not indicate the decline of folk art. Changes in the genre composition of folklore are a natural consequence of the process of development of artistic collective creativity.

What is the relationship between reality and its reflection in folklore? Folklore combines a direct reflection of life with a conventional one. “Here there is no obligatory reflection of life in the form of life itself; convention is allowed.” 8 It is characterized by associativity, thinking by analogy, and symbolism.

Folklore is a type of reflection of popular consciousness. And this distinguishes it from other forms of linguistic art, including literature, in which the lonely personality of the author is expressed. can also reflect a purely personal perception of the environment, while folklore unites a collective, social vision. Modern literary criticism is increasingly turning to the phenomenon of mass literature and the peculiarities of its functioning within Russia. Authors of the 21st century have recently shown a tendency towards an active interpretation of the extraction of traditional culture. The growth in the popularity of mass literature is ensured by writers using the reader’s ability to reproduce on a subconscious level the images and plots already known to him, presented in the work. Very often this “base” is folklore.

Folklore motives

Folklore motifs are used sooner or later by all writers of both mass and elite literature; the difference lies in their function at a given level. In mass literature, folklore is, first of all, a “factor in the formation of national literature,” that is, a guarantor of the correlation of the text with generally accepted standards of literature that the reader is ready to consume. Under such circumstances, literary scholars are trying to determine: what folklore is in literature, how folklore motifs interact with works of mass literature and what are the features of their influence on the author’s text, as well as the transformations that a folklore text experiences as it is included in the plane of a modern literary work and changes it traditional meanings. Researchers establish the limits of the inclusion of a folklore text into a literary text and trace the transformations of universal folklore archetypes. One of the main tasks will be to find out what folklore is in literature, to explore their mutual influence and connections in works of mass literature.

Traditional folklore

Authors of popular literature set the main task when writing a work to interest the reader. To do this, first of all, they strive for a masterful depiction of intrigue. Zofia Mitosek, in her article “The End of Mimesis,” writes that “building suspense is a game of tradition and innovation.” And if by the concept of tradition we mean “the transmission from one generation to another of traditional forms of activity and communication, as well as accompanying customs, rules, ideas, and values,” then for the reader folklore is a worthy representative of tradition in literature. In modern society, it is necessary to instill in the younger generation the need to study traditional folklore.

School curriculum: literature (5th grade) - folklore genres

Fifth grade is an important phase in the development of language education of schoolchildren. The appeal to works using folklore materials is due to the need for self-affirmation, the significant receptivity of fifth grade students to folk art, and the correspondence of folklore as an oral word to the active speech of a child at the stage of constant development. A literature lesson gives a student such education in high school.

Genres of folklore that should be studied in modern schools:

Ritual creativity

Calendar-ritual poetry.
Folk drama.
Heroic epic.
Duma.

Ballads and lyrical songs

Ballads.
Family and everyday songs.
Social and everyday songs.
Gunfighter and rebel songs.
Ditties.
Songs of literary origin.

Fairytale and non-fairytale historical prose

Folk tales.
Legends and traditions.

Folk paremiography

Proverbs and sayings.
Puzzles.
Popular beliefs.
Fables.

Folklore is a “genetic” element of worldview

The artistic action in the plot of works of literature is most often simple and understandable, designed to correspond to the everyday consciousness of the reader. Folklore is a “genetic” element of the worldview and, as a rule, is embedded in the consciousness with the first songs, fairy tales, and riddles from childhood. So, at school, the literature lesson (5th grade) gives the student the features of folklore works. Folklore makes the world clearer and tries to explain the unknown. Therefore, with the interaction of the functions of folklore and literature, a powerful resource is created to influence the consciousness of the recipient, in which the text is able to mythologize human consciousness and even cause a transformation in the rational sphere of human thinking. The answer to the question “what is folklore in literature” is determined by a whole area of integral creative understanding and use. In works of folklore, ideas of creativity are often revealed on the verge of intersection with literature. Perhaps this is also influenced by primordial ritual folklore. Literature (5th grade) in modern schools is increasingly returning to the current topic of spiritual and cultural revival, to the fundamental basis of the existence of our people, one of the main carriers of information about which is folklore.

Tradition of analysis

In our time, there has already emerged a certain tradition of analyzing what folklore is in literature, according to which equating creativity with standards is considered inappropriate: despite the label of “mass” novels, they have their own style, creative manner and, most importantly, the themes of the works. They “regenerated” from the depths of the soul eternal themes, the reader’s interest in which had been dormant since the beginning of the new era. The favorite themes of ancient authors are the village and the city, the historical connection of generations, mystical stories with a love-erotic overtones. A modern style of “direct” description of events is built on established historical images; traditional culture is presented in a modified version. The heroes of the works are characterized by a breadth of comprehension of life and psychological experience; descriptions of their characters are emphasized by reminiscences of the history and culture of our people, which most often appear in the author’s digressions and remarks.

Desacralization of folklore

Emphasis is placed on the visualization of paintings, which is carried out using increased dynamism in the presentation of events and the effect of understatement, which stimulates the reader to creative “collaboration”. In every novel, the hero exists in a world created by the author himself, with its own geography, history, and mythology. But when reading, the recipient perceives this space as already known, that is, he penetrates the atmosphere of the work from the first pages. The authors achieve this effect through the inclusion of various folklore schemes; that is, we are talking about “imitation of myth by non-mythological consciousness,” according to which folklore elements appear under their traditional context and acquire a different semantic meaning, but at the same time perform the function of identification by the reader of ancient meanings already known to him. Thus, in the texts of mass literature there is a desacralization of traditions and folklore.

The phenomenon of modification of the past and present

The phenomenon of modification of the past and present can be traced even in the nature of the construction of almost all works. The texts are replete with proverbs and sayings, which makes it possible to convey the centuries-old experience of the people in a condensed, condensed form. The main thing in the works is that they act as elements of the hero’s monologues and dialogues - most often in this, characters are used as bearers of wisdom and morality. Signs and sayings also serve as a hint at the tragic fate of the heroes of that time. They carry a deep meaning; one sign can tell the hero everything.

Folklore is the harmony of the inner world

So, a certain mythologization and reference to folklore in works is a natural and as integral part of the created world as the specificity of the peasantry, ethnic flavor and live, real broadcasting. Mass literature is built on the “basic models” of the consciousness of the reader of a given nation (which are based on “initial intentions”). In works, such “original intentions” are precisely folklore elements. With the help of folklore motifs, there is a closeness to nature, harmony of the inner world, and other functions of folklore fade into the background, a simplification of sacredness occurs.

Folklore in literature

LYAPUNOVA L.V.

Russian folklore

Russian folklore is the collective name for works of Russian oral folk art (folklore). Russian folklore was passed down from generation to generation in the form of songs or tales, the authorship of which has not been preserved. The length of works of Russian folklore varies from epic epics to short proverbs. The study of Russian folklore began in the 19th century

Genres of folklore

Joke
Bike
Ballad (ballad song, ballad verse)
Epics
Bylichka
Byvalshchina
Children's folklore
A boring fairy tale
Spiritual Poems
Reaping song
Mystery

Genres of folklore

Calendar-ritual songs (carols, sub-blessed songs, Trinity-Semitic, Kupala, stubble, etc.)
Legend
Small genres
Tall tale
Song
Proverb
Proverb
Tradition
Fairy tale
Skomoroshins
Tongue Twisters
Ditties

Russian folk tale is a work of oral creativity of the Russian people, one of the types of folk prose

What is the story about?

Russian fairy tales always tell about something impossible in real life, but fantastic fiction contains an idea, that is, in fiction there is also a truth of life, which is expressed more strongly than if the story were told without fiction. Fairy tales of different nations are similar to each other. But every nation has special fairy tales. All Russian fairy tales bear the stamp of ancient life, customs, and orders.

Fairy tale characters

In Russian fairy tales, magical animals that can talk and help the main character often appear as characters. Sometimes such animals turn out to be bewitched people who need to be freed from the power of evil spells. The following animals are most often present in Russian fairy tales: frogs (Frog Princess), birds (Swan Geese, Firebird), foxes (Lisa Patrikeevna), bears (Mishka Kosolapy), cats (Cat Bayun), wolves (Grey Wolf ), goats (Koza-dereza), horses (Sivka-Burka).

What is folklore?
What are the genres of folklore?

An epic (from the word “byl”) is a work of oral poetry about Russian heroes and folk heroes. They tell about the exploits of heroes showing their strength, prowess, and courage. Passing from generation to generation, they served as a way to transmit ancient beliefs, ideas about the world, and information about history. Everything that was told about in the epics was perceived as truth, as events that actually happened once in the distant past.
Epics are the rich historical experience of the people, which concerns the most diverse aspects of national life: the fight against foreign invaders, the formation of the state, family relationships, and so on.

Read the article "Epics"

Listen to the epic “Ilya Muromets”

A riddle is a genre of children's folklore. In these short poems, only the signs or actions of an object or phenomenon are named, and not the object or phenomenon itself. The riddle often uses the technique of comparison, especially often a non-living object is compared with a living one: the onion is the grandfather, the carrot is the red maiden, the castle is the black dog.
See examples of Russian folk riddles

Slide No. 25 Jokes

Anecdote - from Greek - unpublished.
This is a genre of folklore, a short oral story of satirical or humorous content with an unexpected witty ending.
The heroes of jokes are historical figures, political figures, representatives of races, etc.
Read a collection of jokes on a school theme

Slide No. 26 Ditties

A chastushka is a rhymed four-line refrain sung at a fast tempo. It is usually performed accompanied by an accordion and balalaika. Chastushkas are composed on topical topics, sometimes with political and also love content. This is a popular type of Russian folk art. Chastushkas became widespread in the second half of the nineteenth century, and became especially popular in the first half of the twentieth century.
Read a collection of ditties on a school theme

Slide No. 27 Children's folklore

Children's folklore is a unique phenomenon in its diversity: a huge variety of genres coexist in it, each of which is associated with almost all manifestations of a child's life. Each genre has its own history and purpose. Some appeared in ancient times, others - quite recently, those are designed to entertain, and these are to teach something, others help a little person navigate the big world...

Slide No. 28 Genres
children's
folklore

Pestushki

Calls

Counting tables

Tongue Twisters

Jokes

Lullabies
songs

Slide No. 29 Teasers