As I am reading an aggregation notebook about fairytales, I am reminded of another reason for why there is this change from “folklorist” to “literary” studies of fairytales recently.
As you might know, the “folkloric” studies of fairytales led to typification, classification, catalogues - the famous Aarne-Thompson classification. We identified the “families” of fairytales, the common points they shared, the ingredients of the recipes, the pieces of the puzzle placed together ; we’ve got lists of archetypal characters and the typical scenarios and routines. And don’t get me wrong, this is really good and cool - through this we were able to identify the “untold rules” of fairytales, and the unofficial canons of the genre, and better highlight the unusual or brilliant variations…
But there is a slight problem with those studies. Their “break-down” method might start out or end as a catalogue, but it passes by a system of “molds”, if I dare say so. Basically, to forge types, to classify, to make lists and divided categories, they enforce the stories into a mold, into general archetypes, into “typical behaviors”… And this is where people see things differently nowadays.
The example I can bring forward is how the folklorist studies usually consider an archetype of the story to be the “aggressor”. You know, the typical fairytale villain. And this folklorist approach will often end up basing their categorization on “What does the aggressor does? How does the hero encounters the aggressor? Is the aggressor killed or robbed?”. But who is the aggressor? Anyone and nobody. In the “aggressor” position, they treat the very same way dragons and evil stepmothers, ogres and wicked fairies, witches and lustful kings, greedy knights and devious dwarves. These are all just “costumes”, for some folklorist, placed on an archetypal “fairytale aggressor”, and these “costumes” are just ornaments that are only a secondary, if not tertiary matter.
But… what the “literary studies” are bringing forth nowadays is the question: “Wait… Maybe it does matter. Maybe who or what the aggressor is does matter. Maybe we shouldn’t treat the same way stories that are about dragons and those about evil witches. Maybe there is a reason why the storyteller prefers to talk about a greedy abusive mother rather than an ogre deep in the woods. And the literary studies precisely ask those questions because - unlike the folklorist studies which mostly see fairytales as ancestral plans and outlines, traditional schemas and structure, cultural frameworks and fabrics, the literary studies try to consider the fairytales more as stories first. Stories told by a certain person, in front of a certain audience, crafted a certain way for a certain time and era.
This is why, while the folklorist studies tend to discard or disregard the “little details” as not so important (because they are searching for the bone structure or “primordial core” of the story), the literary studies rather focus on these details - because it is those details that make the story. The little twists and turns that each storyteller adds to the formula, the specific additions of a man or woman’s own mind and culture. For a folklorist study, it doesn’t matter if the key is made out of gold or bronze - or even if it is a key at all, it might be a magical egg as long as it has to be found by the protagonist to open a magical door. But to the literary study, the implications of changing the key from gold to bronze will be questioned, and having an egg instead of a key will be a BIG deal.
I don’t know if what I said is clear, but I just wanted to point it out. (With such a big topic as this whole literary VS folklorist debate, one needs to pile up the little crumbs over each other until they make a big pile, because that’s literaly centuries of scholarship, studies and popular culture reception at war here)