Folklores Influence Towards Modern Texts English Literature Essay

Folklores Influence Towards Modern Texts English Literature EssayStories be the earliest form of literature. It has taken its birth with the birth of man. In india jataka tales Panchtantra and kathasarita sagra atomic number 18 the earliest collection of stories. Story customs in india,Egypt,china and Greece is ealiest form of literature. Origin of folktales is traced back to Vedic Akhayanas.Atharvveda is collection of superstitions,folkbeliefs and rituals of man.Jataka tales be earliest form of folk tales.These jataka tales book their own importance,since they serve as a lense to the past and enable whizz to view clearly working of contemporary society.A systematic survey of jataka takles brook us a picture of by-gone days.Each of these stories conveys a lesson in one way or other whi ch could serve the society in multifarious ways.Jataka tales consist of ideas of overlord Budhha.Buddha while narrating jataka tales had brought out the realities of life which were useful no t in the past but too in the present time.These tales ar mostly in Pali.Customs,traditions and apparitional beliefs of various Hindus are reflected in folk tales.Specific times and places have given folktales a local coloring.The term Folklore was firdt introduced by William THOMS IN 1846.The term folk refers to or so(prenominal) group of people who shares a commen factor of language,occupation or religion. Folklore is transmitted ffrom individual to individual.Folktales were produced by people in the past and today they exist in crushed bit survivals.Folklore is close the traditional beliefs and story of a community.Since hundered years ago,the recognition of folklore has revolutionized our attitude towards such texts.Now we know the importance of folklore and we know no longer study it having relation to mythology.According to some people folklore and mythology should not be separated.The dichotomy took hold in European circles when some of the anthropologist under the influence of Ellen Harrison and Lord raglan discovered a theory both myth and rituals are linked to each other.On the other folktales and folktales were not expected to have any relation with ritual.Folktales are traced back to the vedic ages.Now on that point are Brahamanas whi ch are Sanskrit texts composed by priests to explain the purpose of vedic rituals.This is their universal agenda and every line shows references to vedic leave.There are some flaws in this argument which arises from distinction between myth and folktales,the distinction between the Great and the Little tradition and false supposition that myth is always associated with rituals.Ananda k .kumaraswamy says that the content of folklore is metaphysical.The one thing one could do is to make a sequence of stories all along the line with some more folk so myth and reversal.But to do this ,one has to associate folk with tales that deals primarily with human problems and there is minimum intervention of supernatur al .While myth would deal with supernatural problems.It is useful to cross off between stories having different emphasis in JAIMINIYA and it is too not wise to say that folktales are not myths.They are myths with a non supernatural bent.They are stories about families and problems created before us by human society.It can also be established that the Brahmanas are regarded as the private property of elite textualists who ever lived are infact undistinguishable from the stori es collected by the BrotherS Grimm in german farmhouses.So it is not easy to separate the folk material form classical material .Since these stories in JAIMINIYA were written by priest in Sanskrit and therefore regarded as part of The Great tradition.These prejudice is prevalent even when we know that folk material there is written in Sanskrit words such as Hitopadesa and Panchtantra .Because of their secularity they are regarded as folk tales ,the sacred Brahmanas could not descend the level Marchen,falling s uddenly from myth to folktale.There are certain portion of Jaiminiya dealing with myths..The cosmic stories of the Gods and the Godesses , the creation of the world ,and origin of death ,all of them are well known,There are some stories which are about the sacrifice ,they are about the shadowsof sacrifice obscured in rituals but illuminated by narrations,The sacrifice in these tales have so numerous myths ssociated with it as clear from allusions in Rigveda.We can locate folktales in space but not in particular time.We can specify the era or the age of the tales.Take an example of Danga-66G sqmile are in Gujarat.It is inhabited by many communities that modern Indian government would classify as Scheduled tribe.Goth was the word used in Dang for stories,narrative or account.There are so many stories of Dangis pasts such as Juni goth,Mohorni goth,padunchi goth.There is also a contrast being shown by Fabian of the coevalness of imperialism and anthroplology.There are 2 major events i n which Dangis vomit their past are moglai and mandini.Moglai is the time when Dangis moved in forests .Mandini marks the end of moglai.Mandini is associated with british rule over region.It shows the distinction between premodern and modern.Moglai is identified with pre-colonial and mandini is associated with british rule.History of Dangs on Gujarat deals with pre-colonialism and post colonialism .Most of the tales in Gujarat have tangential relations of past or present.Khari goth or true stories sustain to claim to time and space whereas notional goth come at margins of khari goth.Old men and women in their old age might often tell children other stories of their youth,stories which they learned from the vadils which leads to customs.There are so many things in folktales which are treated as customs now a days.In the story of Vermilion and marriage,there are four members of tribe who were fast friends since boyhood.One of them was a hawked vermilion,another a weaver ,third took to timber carving and fourth was a goldsmith.Once they decided to spend night in a mango orchard.One was still awake,other three were sleeping.The wood carver was academic term idle ,he took a log of wood and chiselled it into a female figure.The goldsmith made a gold chain , pair of earrings and bangles for her.The waever wove a sari for female figure.The vermilion hawker anointed her head with vermilion just at day break.The four friends started quarreling as to who should marry the girl.A holy man perceive their voices and said ,he who made her is her father ,he who clothed her is her elder brother,he who gave ornaments is her uncle,he who brought her to life and put vermilion on her forehead is her husband .And the woman became the wife of hawker.These customs are still prevalent in society.Applying vermilion on the forehead of a girl means that she is married to the boy who does so.Th e story tries to preserve tradition.It also reveals that fighting for a girl is commen prac tice in Indian society.It also supports the proverb one who posseses skills can not sit idle.The four friends were endowed with skill,rather than sitting idle.They preferred to work at night and could also enjoy enjoy the fruits of their labour.By the study of anthropological studies ,it is clearly visible that folklore deals with one branch of anthropology named heathenish anthropology.Bascom,professor of anthropology at the university of California at Berkeley is aware of depending on oral transmission.According to Utleys concept of folk literature he says that Bascom tends to make verbal art as boundary of folklore.which includes (myth,folktales and legends),but not folk dance,medicine and folk belief(superstition).Bascom also says that the text of ballads and other songs are folklore but the music of ballads and other songs are not.The folklore is linked with kind science and humanities.Literary and anthropological approaches to folklore are clearly essential and ecomplementar y.Each one has its own separate methods and ideology rather working on commen areas of interest.Cultural anthropology is referred to known as hearty anthropology.Anthropology is also associated with folklore.Archaeology is not directly related to folklore but it provides information about past developments.Linguistics in some way is related to folklore because they shared a commen verbal art.Any ethnographical study witout folkloreis partially and incomplete description of culture.Morever folklore sanctions and validates the social.religious and economic institutions .It also plays an important role in transferring this institution from generation to generation.Culture is a great part of anthropology today.It consist of any kind of behavior acquired through learning.Under it anthropologists include all customs,traditions together with their methods of production.According to Dr. Gustav klemm of Dresdon from his collections of facts of history,he termed culture as including customs ,information and skills domestic and public life is love-in-idleness and war religion science and art and saysit is manifest on branch of tree of deliberately shape,in the rubbing of sticks to make fire,the cremation of a deceased,father corpse the decorative photo of once body,the transmission of past experience to new generation.Folklore is studied in anthropology,because it is part of culture.It is a part of tradition,customs,a part of heritage.Many folktales were rejected because they did not fill the acknowledge need of accepted patterns or tradition of folklore.Folktales are dyanamic that changes with needs of society.The folk element in folklore presents no new problems as anthropologist sees it.There are various questions on who invwnted various themes of folktales,how they have reworked in the past and how the previous variation have influenced the product of any given story teller or writer.Since any ethnic law have taken hold on folklore,the data collection of folklo re used to bute testify the ideology of culture.The accepted theories of culture can thus hold to theory of folklore.The theory of cultural evolution developed by Tyler,Morgan and other remains a point of contention between anthropologists and folklorists.This theory was accepted by scholars of latter half of nineteenth century and developed and described by the scholars of 20th century.Folklorists have defined folklore that folklore have survived from earlier stage of civilization as the shadowy remnants of ancient religious rites still incorporated in the lives of illeterates and rustics.Analyzation of theory of cultural evolution shows that it was based on certain ideologies which were never proved and in some cased later on have been disapproved.We can not search the ultimate origin of folklore by evolution and age-area concept because archaeological evidences and historical documents are lacking.If we try to reconstruct history on restricted side ,it can give result only in t erms of probability than prove facts.Change in folktales can be studied perfectly in process rather than reconstructions based in deistribution.When Cushing some sixty five years ago had the forsight to record the Italian tale of the cock and the mouseas told by juni informant.The companion of the juni variants spotlights many juni stylistic features and serves only to showwhat transformation the original in underwent in such a brief period and how well it has ben adopted to juni environment and mode thought,but also to give a glimpse of Indian method of folktale making.Through the examples of changing forms in folktales,we can learn about freedom give to the narrator in various forms of folktales in various societies.Anthropologists are anxious about the place,native society and social settings of folklore.One cannot establish these facts from text of tales alone,yet without them one can only have idea about nature of folklore and its full meaning.There is a relation between folkt ales and culture from two points of view.The first in which folktales represents culture by means if rituals and beliefs but sometime folktales can do thingswhich are regarded as shocking in daily life.Take one example old man Coyote has intercourse with his mother in law.Where as in ordinary life the American Indian who finds amusement in these tales must observe strict mother in law avoidance.Since the time of Euhemerous,folklorist have made efforts to explain distinction between folklore and actual conduct.The function of idiotic state of mind can not only serve as a complete answer,it is clear that beneath these deal of humour,lies a deeper meaning and that folklore serves as psychological escape from many repressions not only sexual which society imposes upon individual.Apart from their entertainment,folktales provide us a clear view of present and past tradition and culture of the origin,how they originate.Bihar is one of important states in India with rich folklore tradition Panchtantra is one of the most important collection of stories in India.Folktales generally revolve around social mythological and social concepts.It depicts horror situations and wicked evil spirits are some of the commen elements of folklore.Inspite of different varities the folkales of various regions shows a common pattern.Stories of origin of mankind are told through out the world.These are some oral messages which are always found in folktales as 1)Good will triumph and evil will be punished .2)True always come to light. 3)A friend in need is a friend indeed.4)Might makes right. Folk tales preserves social traditions and social taboos.