folk literature essay

folk literature essay

The Power of Folk Literature

1. Introduction

The importance of folk literature was first acknowledged by Vigotsky. In 1978, he said that from the mental oral poetry that the children learn, they extract a model of the literary, educational, and writing language. As early childhood experts, the creators and disseminators of oral tradition are the common people. They contribute significantly to the education of the people of the future, providing them with the knowledge and models they will need to talk, interact with others, and advise and solve problems. The future adult morality of the child’s values will derive from the traditions of their own culture. The child not only interacts with adults during his or her daily life of games and chats with peers but will also interact with life based on linguistic-expressive stereotypes that regulate rhythm, speed, and prosody. In 1976, he goes deeper into the characteristics of the folklore of children up to six or seven years of age. In fact, they are this folklore that reflects spontaneous creativity. More intensely marked are what many characteristics of every folklore shrink and overlap.

Folk literature contains the heart and soul of a people and is imaginative and creative. It includes the folklore of many peoples and traditions, specifically music, dance, games, signs, customs, and ritual. The importance of educating children through their own folklore is of scientific interest because it is rooted in the real life of the people and is the first concrete example of oral tradition and popular wisdom. For this reason, folk literature such as fables, legends, fairy tales, or oral poetry is essential to understand the past of a people because they contain the values, fears, desires, expectations, uses, customs, emotions, and beliefs of that society. The meaning of the word “popular” can vary considerably depending on the time, culture, and above all, the subjectivity of the various authors, which has been subordinated to knowledge, the heritage of those, the poor classes. Popular criteria are therefore rather numerous and, in most cases, can be arbitrarily combined. Lacanchia and Zavagno argue that the submission of folk literature synonymous with folklore, etc.

2. History of Folk Literature

There is probably no other document more comprehensive than folk literature about the history of a nation’s or a country’s feelings, thoughts, joys, sorrows, their traditions, customs, abilities, social development, or culture. By its very nature, they are testimonies from the bottom up, and it can be seen that many of them coincide with legends and classical tragedies on different topics or motives available. The repertoire of folk literature is rich and varied. Mixing English with sagas and folklore mixed with history, every country has their own set of tales waiting to be passed from generation to generation. When these ballad tales were performed lyrically, the epic spirit of these historic folklore was found in them. Some of the shorter ballads, directly connected with ancient pirated traditions, are distinguished by short reflections. These ballads are full of emotions and little stories that are instantly mentioned and ended, one by one. Because these brief ballads have happened so long ago, they will awaken feelings, born in humans in the distant past, and buried for a while.

Folk literature has come from many different forms of history, but for ages it has been preserving the voices of the past. Sometimes its literature has originated from prescribed books, or other times it originates from the wisdom of the common people. But how has it been preserved? From generation to generation. Simple stories that were once spoken then turned into singing ones, passed in waves from one person to another, kept the tales alive, kept their memory written in the pages of history. A certain type of poetry arose from these folklore stories, and it became the Bible’s method of preserving the religious spirit. People sometimes sing, recite, and tell stories from this kind of literature because of the powerful feelings they feel. What they convey is timeless, deep in the roots of human nature, and does not change with fashion. They have been listened to and believed because they are from the heart. When these ballads are performed lyrically, they represent the epic spirit, but sometimes they preserve legends and famous historical events. By these verses, people could feel the grandeur of the language they first learned.

3. Themes in Folk Literature

Folk literature holds many truths tucked carefully within its golden pages. In the creation myths, for example, we hear much about what is divine and eternal in nature and what is mortal as well. As Heraclitus was to reflect, “The visibility of divine Wisdom is enough” in the procession of the universe from its fiery beginning to its fiery end. As shown in numerous creation myths narrated by various American Indian nations, these principles are embedded in oral tradition and are perceived as involving a series of tasks which deity is continually escalating toward the sun. In Greece, this idea is preserved by the idea of Promethean theft, in the winter rituals of preliterate Europe by the necessary theft of the yule log, etc. The theme is found also in Old English mythology, and recently, among the Vikings who believed that in Múspellheimr, a terrible place of fiery light, molten gems, and acrid smoke, fiery beings would be kindling the universe’s end.

Themes in Folk Literature. Life in all of its fullness, even life itself, is the abundant theme of earth’s great literature and nowhere is this fact made more evident than in folk literature. It comes as no surprise to discover that many of the most beautiful and beloved statements of life’s richness are found in ancient tales and poems, passed through generations as a vital part of the human treasure. Though long usage has caused a cooling of the original fire, such poems as the thirty-second Rune of the Elder Edda (Havamál) have lost none of their warmth or splendor. We are told there are other treasures and that humans who do not seek them out live a sterile and stunted life: “Dost thou wish to lodge and thrive, then better thyself fain would I love the friend’s love.” These proof stones are not simply the inheritance of literate society but also of preliterate peoples, who have been fully aware of the riches such literary products unfold.

4. Impact of Folk Literature

In fact, the stories in folk literature do not simply represent the fun entertainment or retelling of the story itself. Rather, the connotations and implications are constantly leading us to realize the noble sentiment and concepts cherished by ancient society. A country or an ethnic group often pays attention to the contents of a certain ideology or belief. This is very good for imparting and inheriting the country’s culture. The richness and diversity of the world’s cultural heritage also strongly remind us to treat the repositioning and protection of these treasures with due diligence, enthusiasm, and humility, and pay attention or balance the relationship between transmitting tradition and promoting innovation. Only in this way can folk literature play its due role in the great practice of human beings and find a broader life path here.

Folk literature impacts the adults’ and children’s effectiveness and quality of thinking. Folk literature stories are the most basic tools for human’s comprehension of the world, self-cognition, value shaping, and collective observation. Most of the important abilities are hidden. By experiencing the stages of the story and empathy, adults and children can also enhance their thinking and logical ability. In the process of continuous restoration, the children can gradually develop the ability of thinking and experience accumulation. Folk literature stories have been passed from generation to generation with their unique charm and wisdom. The stories written by the ancestors are also the most profound and shining pearls in folk literature. The great part about folk stories is the healthy and positive influence.

5. Conclusion

There is not a separate world for the contents of a children’s book; there is but one world. For the child, the content is immediately and directly related to his life. Our literature today is so intellectually mature that we forget that the same ideas that permeate our writings today, and our philosophies, and our dramas, are ideas which were thoroughly enjoyed and won the hearts of our predecessors of many, many centuries past. In fact, when we speak of originality, we must admit that there is no originality. It is a process of readaptation. Folk literature, those simple ideas of the tortoise, the lion, the rabbit, the wolf, are ideas which we ourselves constantly reproduce in our most advanced literature. Folk tales, based on simple, but compelling ideas, capture the essence of our emotional experience.

The power of folk literature. At its core, folk literature transmits values, traditions, and customs from one generation to the next. Folk literature can create a bridge between the students’ everyday lives and the literary canon, thus providing access to the depths of the human imagination. In a classroom that welcomes all forms of literacy, supports various learning styles, and encourages students to write creatively by experimenting with language, students will become competent and motivated readers. The tradition of folk tales demonstrates how structures are repeated with different variations and reveal the use of motifs and archetypes. Folk literature allows for discussions about conflict resolution, personal conduct, and observations of the human condition.