International Folkloristics: Classic Contributions by the Founders of Folklore by Alan Dundes

Author:Alan Dundes
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781461637851
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 1999-07-31T18:30:00+00:00

Folklore. [Giovanni] Crocioni [in Problemi fondamentali del Folklore, Bologna, Zanichelli, 1928] criticizes as confused and imprecise the division of folkloristic material provided by Pitrè in his 1897 introduction to the Bibliografia delle Tradizioni popolari, and he proposes his own division into four sections: art, literature, science, morality of the people.52 This division, too, is criticized as imprecise, poorly defined, and too broad. (Raffaele) Ciampini, in the Fiera Letteraria of 30 December 1928, asks: “Is it scientific? How, for ex., do superstitions fit into it? And what is the meaning of a morality of the people? How does one study it scientifically? And why, then, not discuss a religion of the people, as well?” It seems to me that until now folklore has been studied (in fact, until now, there has only been the collection of raw material) as a “picturesque” element. It ought to be studied as a “conception of the world” of particular social strata which are untouched by modern currents of thought. This conception of the world is not elaborated and systematized because the people, by definition, cannot do such a thing; and it is also multifarious, in the sense that it is a mechanical juxtaposition of various conceptions of the world, if it is not, indeed, a museum of fragments of all the conceptions of the world and of life that have followed one another throughout history. Even modern thought and science furnish elements to folklore, in that certain scientific statements and certain opinions, torn from their context, fall into the popular domain and are “arranged” within the mosaic of tradition. (Pascarella’s “Scoperta dell’America” shows how notions about Christopher Columbus and other figures, disseminated by elementary school textbooks, are assimilated in bizarre ways.)53 Folklore can be understood only as a reflection of the conditions of life of the people, although folklore frequently persists even after those conditions have been modified in bizarre combinations.

Certainly, there exists a “religion of the people,” especially in Catholic and Orthodox countries (much less so in Protestant countries). The morality of the people is custom and, like superstition, it is closely connected to the real religious beliefs of the people: there are certain imperatives which are much stronger and more tenacious than those of Kantian morals.

Ciampini thinks that Crocioni is quite right in upholding the necessity to teach folklore at the training schools for future teachers, but then he denies the possibility of raising the question of the usefulness of folklore (he means to say, the study of folklore). For him, folklore (that is, the study of folklore) is an end in itself and is only useful insofar as it offers to a people the elements for a deeper knowledge of itself. To study superstitions in order to eradicate them would be, for Ciampini, as if folklore were to kill itself, whereas science is nothing but disinterested knowledge, an end in itself!!! But then why teach folklore in teachers’ training schools? To augment the disinterested culture of teachers? The state has its own conception of life and it strives to disseminate it: this is its task and duty.

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