The Concept of Folklore: An Overview of the Psychoanalytic Reading of Folklores

Stories have always found a special place in every society and a story teller has had listeners hung on to his or her every word breathlessly for ages . These stories were of myriad quality ranging from comic to heroic, from fables featuring animal as anthropomorphic to fantasy with goblins and fairies. The term folk lore or folk tale is used in English to refer to fairy tales in English such as Cinderella or snow White ,Folk Tales in the broader sense of the term includes all forms of prose narrative , written or oral which are handed down through generations. The modern story telling differs from the traditional folk tale in one important aspect. The modern storyteller emphasizes on the originality of the material. Whereas the teller of the folk tale prides on the fact that he 0r she can pass down the folklores almost verbatim. The folk teller can also uses their own embellishment in the tale in order to mesmerize their audience .It is therefore difficult to separate the oral from the written in folk tale because it travels mostly orally and no folk tale can be traced back to any one writer. Which is to say that maybe the oral stories need not have been always oral . But once the story teller or the raconteur recites it in the public, it becomes more of something to tell to the listener and not something to be read. Historically these public spaces where raconteur and poets recited the popular tales, been the major source of entertainment for the general public. Ancient Greek performed popular plays for the public and there was a stress on the oral recitation and the concept of catharsis or the purgation of the feelings of pity and fear. This art of story telling is not bound by any segment of the society or civilization but is ubiquitously present . It is older than history itself and it travels orally through continents and through space and time. It may differ from place to place but it exists to fulfill one social function and an important human need, which is entertainment. There also exist a curiosity about history or the legends. The oral recitation of heroic tales and legends lend an almost pride like quality among the listeners. The legends of the heros are mostly about their tribes or society and they represent the ideals of honour, pride and virtue for the entire tribe. India as a diverse and culturally rich county has written literature going thousands of years back before Homer .