Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Sources of Tales Worldwide - Remus and Roman de Reynard

Sources of heritage. Often elsewhere.

Some information and research topics are available only to some institutions or other entities that require subscriptions, payments, all that. Still, some of those do relax a little and make bits open to the rest of us who are tight-fisted.

Roman de Renard or Roman de Renart.

Here is a scholarly source that traces Uncle Remus tales and themes back to France's 11th century Roman de Renard, the Story of the Fox - at JSTOR's ://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0030-8129(1892)7%3Cxxxix%3ATTOURT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-2. It even (for once) offers a free teaser as to content - actual pages from an early work from 1892. There was no "France" then, but the area is there.

This is not a critique or summary of that research, because that takes full access to this JSTOR - the point is only that human beings find certain themes to be of interest, develop tales about them, repeat them and they go miles and miles and miles.

Other sources trace the stories to Africa - the theory holds. Human beings find certain themes to be of interest, develop tales about them, repeat them, and they go miles and miles and miles.

THE FRANCE CONNECTION. The Roman de Renart dates from 12th or 13th Century France, a collection of tales, often rowdy, or bawdy, with a trickster at the focal point. If you were in college, we would find this source for a summary - at //www.enotes.com/classical-medieval-criticism/roman-de-renart; then party on and spit it back on an exam as though we figured it out ourselves. Life.

Tricksters. In any culture. Find more medieval French ones at ://www.utm.edu/staff/globeg/narrat.shtml. Click on the Fox.

Sometime we will get on Aesop and what role the fox plays in the fables. This is great stuff. We think we are all so different, but we ain't. From ancient Greece to reconstruction South. People, just getting along against the strong. Find a 1930's film on the Fox at ://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021309/.

The trickster. Everybody watch out.

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