Papers by Francisco Vaz da Silva
Humanities, 2024
This study unfolds between and betwixt folklore and literature. It shows how an approach develope... more This study unfolds between and betwixt folklore and literature. It shows how an approach developed for interpreting wondertales can be applied to a complex literary corpus, such as Marcel Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time). The discussion proposes a case study for the use of allomotifs, or equivalent interchangeable motifs, to understand symbolic patterns in Proust's œuvre. It suggests that comparing Proustian variants is the same sort of procedure as comparing wondertale variants and yields the same sort of results. The argument lays bare a particular metaphorical field in wondertales, hinging on flowers; then follow its complications in the Proustian corpus, to finally venture some thoughts on the continuity found between folklore and a literary masterpiece.
Disenchantment, Re-Enchantment and Folklore Genres, ed. Nemanja Radulović and Smiljana Ðorđević-Belić (Belgrade: Institute of Literature and Arts, 2021), 2021
More than two decades ago the folklorist Isabel Cardigos remarked that the hinge of fairy tales i... more More than two decades ago the folklorist Isabel Cardigos remarked that the hinge of fairy tales is the cyclical movement in and out of enchantment. I feel that this insight is important, and I propose to briefly explain my understanding of it. First, I mention the importance of using allomotifs to bring out the folk metaphors in fairy tales. Then, I discuss a basic symbolic paern of enchantments at the core of fairy tales. Overall, I add to Vladimir Propp's statement that the most complete fairy tale is a heroic quest the proposition that the irreducible core of fairy tales hinges on feminine maturation. Along the way, I discuss some metaphors suggestive of the lunar template at the core of fairy tales.
Folklore, 2021
This article looks at the nineteenth-century preconception that ‘primitives’ ignore fatherhood—ho... more This article looks at the nineteenth-century preconception that ‘primitives’ ignore fatherhood—how it crept into ethnographic reports, made its way into anthropological theory, and sparked debates for the best part of a century. The discussion looks at the influential work of James Frazer and Sidney Hartland—at how these authors relied on folk metaphors to reason about the ignorance of ‘primitives’—and exposes Bronislaw Malinowski’s place in that tradition. Beyond revisiting Trobriand ethnography, this article argues that knowledge in anthropology and folkloristics is inherently metaphorical. The article makes a case for heeding metaphors across cultures, including in scholarly models, as a tool for understanding the varieties of human thinking.
A Companion to World Literature, 2020
What is a fairy tale, where on earth do these tales stem from, and what are fairy tales about? Th... more What is a fairy tale, where on earth do these tales stem from, and what are fairy tales about? The discussion in this chapter addresses these basic questions, and then considers a long‐standing puzzle: Why are all fairy tales fundamentally similar, although no two variants are ever alike? I argue that answering this question requires heeding fairy‐tale transformations. For this purpose, we watch how the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, and Yasunari Kawabata variously transform one pervasive fairy‐tale image. The main point of this exercise is to suggest that fairy tales hinge on a stable pattern of symbolic transformations, which literary taletellers ply to their own genius (and specific agendas) as they recycle old tales into new stories that keep talking to one another.
The Routledge Companion to Media and Fairy-Tale Cultures, 2018
This paper challenges a longstanding consensus on the need to foreground the homogeneity, purity... more This paper challenges a longstanding consensus on the need to foreground the homogeneity, purity, and simplicity of fairy tales. It argues that the core of fairy tales is enchantment, a phase ruled by lunar time. The discussion examines a transmedial string of variants of “The Maiden in the Tower” (ATU 310) and “Sleeping Beauty” (ATU 410)—stories about girls in the dark forest, suspended between heaven and earth, who are ushered by ambivalent witches/fairies into a fateful transition. As girls spin a spindle, they cycle along with the moon; as they prick a finger, they mark with blood the thread of their lives. Cyclic time, which straddles opposites, breeds pervasive fairy-tale hybridity.
---------------
Free online access (until August 25th): https://rdcu.be/0FpO
House of European History, Temporary Exhibition Catalogue, 2017
I wrote this short essay for the catalogue of the opening temporary exhibition of the new House o... more I wrote this short essay for the catalogue of the opening temporary exhibition of the new House of European History in Brussels. This contribution probes a core theme of fairy tales across Europe, and argues that fairy-tale exchanges are good to think with.
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature, 2017
This overview of major contributions to the study of fairy-tale symbolism examines the ideas of M... more This overview of major contributions to the study of fairy-tale symbolism examines the ideas of Max Müller, the Brothers Grimm, Sigmund Freud and followers, Carl Jung and followers, Joseph Campbell, Alan Dundes, Bengt Holbek, Maria Tatar, Claude Lévi-Strauss, and Vladimir Propp. Drawing on insights contributed by these authors, as well as on the ongoing work of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, this essay gauges the metaphorical clockwork of fairy tales and suggests a way forward in the study of fairy-tale symbolism.
This entry in the new Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature is free for a limited time.
New Approaches to Teaching Folk and Fairy Tales, 2017
In this paper I argue that understanding fairy tales entails something akin to a flip of the mind... more In this paper I argue that understanding fairy tales entails something akin to a flip of the mind, which may yield an engrossing classroom experience as we (students and instructor) follow Little Red Riding Hood into the forest of symbols.
Marvels & Tales, 2016
Did Perrault invent Little Red Riding Hood? This article examines the thematic links between Perr... more Did Perrault invent Little Red Riding Hood? This article examines the thematic links between Perrault’s literary conte and the oral tradition, and follows the “Little Red Riding Hood” theme up to the present day. I make the case that Perrault’s literary reformulations launched a hitherto obscure oral theme into its present spell of multimedia celebrity. The notions of evolution and symbolic equivalence are front and center in this discussion.
Folktales and Fairy Tales: Traditions and Texts from Around the World, edited by Anne E. Duggan & Donald Haase, vol. 3.
This very short essay addresses the relationship between ritual and fairy tales.
Folktales and Fairy Tales: Traditions and Texts from Around the World, edited by Anne E. Duggan & Donald Haase, vol. 3.
This is a short overview of the symbolism of snakes in worldwide folklore and in fairy tales.
The Cambridge Companion to Fairy Tales, ed. Maria Tatar. Cambridge UP, 2015
This essay considers fairy-tale symbolism by means of a rather obscure tale, "The Maiden Who Seek... more This essay considers fairy-tale symbolism by means of a rather obscure tale, "The Maiden Who Seeks Her Brothers" (ATU 451). The discussion highlights the lunar aspect of fairy-tale enchantments in the woods. It also notes the cross-cultural reach of lunar imagery in ritual, myth, and the fairy tale.
Marvels & Tales 28 (1), 2014
This essay argues that the metamorphosis of Cinderella's mother into a cow, featured in folktales... more This essay argues that the metamorphosis of Cinderella's mother into a cow, featured in folktales across Europe, bespeaks hoary notions concerning procreation, the animal shapes of wandering spirits, and the fate of the soul in the afterlife.
Narrative Culture 1 (1), May 2014
The leading question in this paper is: How can comparative studies escape the self-referential mi... more The leading question in this paper is: How can comparative studies escape the self-referential mirages of looking-glass scholarship? The essay examines Claude Lévi-Strauss's interpretation of The Tale of Genji (an eleventh-century Japanese literary masterpiece), then draws a parallel between Lévi-Strauss’s argument and Alice’s famous remark that Looking-Glass House reflects her own home. My point, expressed in terms of the looking-glass metaphor, is that gazing at alien narratives through the prism of home-made typologies amounts to seeing yourself in the mirror; whereas engaging in symbolic translation across cultures is tantamount to going through the mirror and following the twists of metaphorical thought. I examine The Tale of Genji in this perspective.
A Companion to Folklore (Wiley-Blackwell Companions to Anthropology), 2012
This discussion follows the etymological clue and addresses traditions in terms of transmission, ... more This discussion follows the etymological clue and addresses traditions in terms of transmission, cultural selection, and evolution over time. It examines some things that narrative scholars wrote on tradition, and it submits that tradition pervades much of what scholars and authors actually write.
Povos e Culturas, 2007
Examina a relação entre a pomba e a serpente/dragão como leitmotiv de uma cosmologia cíclica que ... more Examina a relação entre a pomba e a serpente/dragão como leitmotiv de uma cosmologia cíclica que orienta as narrativas bíblicas entre a criação do mundo e o baptismo de Cristo. Aborda a relação entre textos canónicos cristãos e as suas reelaborações na tradição popular, incluindo arte sacra.
Why has European art represented Jesus as a dragon slayer? This essay argues that defeating the ... more Why has European art represented Jesus as a dragon slayer? This essay argues that defeating the dragon is a leitmotif pervading Old Testament depictions of creation wrenched from the marine abyss ( Gn 1:1–13, Gn 6–9, Ex 14–15). The discussion submits that the same leitmotiv pervades the birth, baptism, and resurrection of Jesus. This is a study in mythological transpositions, symbolic condensation in art, and cyclic time.
Ruth B. Bottigheimer has contended that a specific literary man invented the fairy-tale genre les... more Ruth B. Bottigheimer has contended that a specific literary man invented the fairy-tale genre less than five centuries ago. This article is a critical examination of her claim. It interrogates the axioms underlying Bottigheimer’s proposition, probes the logical consistency of her account, and surveys Bottigheimer’s use of empirical evidence. It concludes that while Bottigheimer’s proposition is a healthy challenge to folklorists who would disregard literary texts as a matter of principle, her assumptions, reasoning, and conclusions leave much to be desired.
This paper proposes that an intertextual reading of mythic stories handed down by Plato delineate... more This paper proposes that an intertextual reading of mythic stories handed down by Plato delineates a grandiose scheme of alternating time, which is in line with the way immemorial folklore has represented the apparent rounds of the sun and moon. Moreover, this discussion makes the point that the notion of alternating time is inherent to traditional ideas regarding space as well as the so-called life cycle. In a nutshell, this essay deals with manifestations of a fundamental time pattern in mythical cosmography, geography, and biography.
Uploads
Papers by Francisco Vaz da Silva
---------------
Free online access (until August 25th): https://rdcu.be/0FpO
This entry in the new Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature is free for a limited time.
---------------
Free online access (until August 25th): https://rdcu.be/0FpO
This entry in the new Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature is free for a limited time.
Scholarly quotes should refer to the published book <https://www.folklorefellows.fi/ffc-326/>. Order it here: <https://tiedekirja.fi/en/meanings-of-enchantment>
------------------------------
ERRATUM (print version)
P. 22 nt. 2: Straparola's Le Piacevoli Notti, published in 1550–1553, is erroneously transposed to the early seventeenth century.
P. 77: Straparola's Le Piacevoli Notti is erroneously called Pentamerone .
Este primeiro volume apresenta o tema de Gata Borralheira como um vasto ciclo de contos constituído por quatro subgrupos: as desventuras da Gata Borralheira propriamente dita, Maria Peluda, Amor como o Sal e Rapaz de Cinzas.
http://www.amazon.com/Archeology-Intangible-Heritage-International-Folkloristics/dp/1433102188/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1270281566&sr=1-1
http://lccn.loc.gov/2007051531
http://lccn.loc.gov/2002003259"
WHERE: SIEF2017 13th Congress: Göttingen, Germany. 26-30 March 2017.
DEADLINE: 7 November, 2016.
The argument sets out to reveal the symbolic framework of wondertales as a genre. It underlines the stability of symbolic patterns in tales across space and time, as well as the adaptability of the myriad variants to specific historical settings—hence, the evolution of the texts in tune with their contexts.
Going beyond rigid distinctions of oral vs. literary vs. cinematic retellings, this book shows that the comparison of all sorts of variants is helpful to understand the tales. It would not be wrong to say that it proposes a mental ethnography of the wondertale—a cartography of its symbolic landscape—up to the present day. Along the way, it revisits a number of received ideas (such as the centrality of male protagonists, the inherent victimhood of feminine characters, and the immanent misogyny of the tales) in light of oral retellings and older literary strata of the wondertale tradition.