| Sibelan Forrester | Office Hours: |
| Kohlberg 340 | M. 11:00-12:00 |
| 610-328-8162 (office) | T. 11:30-12:30 |
| sforres1@swarthmore.edu | Th. 1:00-2:00 |
| www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/sforres1/ | ...or by appointment |
As readers and listeners, film viewers, and perhaps children of parents who told us bedtime stories, we may consider fairy tales somehow “natural,” simple, comforting in their familiarity. Like any kind of folklore, however, traditional tales and their literary adaptations become vastly more satisfying if we have the tools to reveal the richness and complexity of their contents and functions. Acquiring those tools, plus the background knowledge needed to use them critically, will be our business in this course.
Why are fairy tales so pleasing? What do we think we already know about them? What do they offer to modern artists and adaptors? What can we learn from them, and what can the ways we read them teach us about ourselves?
COURSE GOALS include: Learning about oral culture and its transformations into literary and other adaptations; surveying the history of folklore studies; exploring Russian culture from the angle of its folklore and the role of folklore in its literature; practicing academic writing, always useful.
ACCOMODATIONS STATEMENT:
If you believe you need accommodations for a disability or a chronic medical condition, please visit the Student Disability Services website
for details about the accommodations process. Since accommodations require early planning and are not retroactive, contact Student
Disability Services as soon as possible. You are also welcome to contact me [Sibelan Forrester] privately to discuss your academic
needs. However, all disability-related accommodations must be arranged, in advance, through Student Disability Services.
The grade break-down:
| In-class presentation: | 10% |
| Midterm exam questions: | 5% |
| Midterm exam: | 10% |
| "Creative" project of your choice (see #4 above): | 15% |
| "Theory" paper: | 15% |
| Performance in the final week: | 10% |
| Attendance and participation: | 20% |
| Final examination: | 15% |
Check the course Moodle page for any other materials I've asked you to work with.
Available in Tripod:
Acknowledgments of ideas and materials: This course and its organization owe a great deal to David J. Birnbaum (University of Pittsburgh), Helena Goscilo (The Ohio State University), the late Konstantin K Loginov (Russian Academy of Sciences, Karelian Affiliate, Petroavodsk, Russia), Irina A Razumova (Petrozavodsk State Pedagogical University, Russia), Dr. Lisa Woodson, Dr. Laura Matthews, and the late Felix J. Oinas (Indiana University)
WEEK TWO | WEEK THREE | WEEK FOUR | WEEK FIVE | WEEK SIX | WEEK SEVEN | WEEK EIGHT | WEEK NINE | WEEK TEN | WEEK ELEVEN | WEEK TWELVE | WEEK THIRTEEN | WEEK FOURTEEN | FINAL EXAM
The primary sources for our work are the folk tales in Afanas'ev’s volume. I won't assign them all individually, but expect you to have read the whole book (to p. 656) by the end of the fourth week of class or so. Jump ahead to be sure you’ve read tales you haven’t reached yet; quickly revisit particular tales on days when we’ll be discussing them. Texts not in the required books are on Moodle.
Introduction to syllabus and topic; quick outline of Russian history and its "trauma points;" "the Folk" in Russia; genres of Russian folklore; Folklore as an academic discipline
For January 23, read Ivanits, Russian Folk Belief, ix-xii, 3-18, 51-82; Afanas'ev, "The Foolish German," 600; Pushkin, "Rusalka" (on Moodle, translation by Genia Gurarie)
January 23:
Russian paganism; deities and festivals; terminology; domestic and nature spirits
READ for January 28 - Ivanits 83-124, 169-89, 190-205; Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy, 139-155 (on Moodle); Semyonova Tian-Shanskaya, Village Life in Late Tsarist Russia (on Moodle), 1-21; Afanas'ev, "Ivan the Peasant’s Son and the Thumb-Sized Man," 262-68; "The Tale of Shaitan and His Daughter," on Moodle
THINK ABOUT SCHEDULING YOUR PRESENTATION
January 28:
The style of folk tales; saints and devils
READ for January 30 - Ivanits 19-50, 127-68; Ong, Orality and Literacy, 5-30; Worobec, Possessed, 3-19; Afanas'ev, "The White Duck," 342-45
January 30:
Folktales versus fairy tales; sorcery and healing; shrieking
For February 4 - Semyonova Tian-Shanskaia, 22-49; Bruno Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment, 3-19, 102-11; Marie Von Franz, “Taboos,” from Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales (190-214); Sheldon Cashdan, “Envy” from The Witch Must Die
February 4:
Psychoanalytic approaches to fairy tales: Freudian (Bettelheim), Jungian (Maria-Luise von Franz), Self Theory (Sheldon Cashdan)
For February 6 - Semyonova Tian-Shanskaya, 50-61; Afanas'ev, "Salt," 40-44; "The Three Kingdoms," 49-53; "Ivanushko, the Little Fool," 62-66; "The Princess Who Wanted to Solve Riddles," 115-17; "The Dead Body," 118-19; "The Wicked Sisters," 356-60; "The Golden-Bristled Pig, [etc.]," 533-41; "Prince Ivan, the Firebird, and the Grey Wolf," 612-24
February 6:
"Youngest Child" tales; "Ivan Durak" ("Ivan the Fool"), "Ivanushka Durachok" ("Little Ivan the Little Fool")
For February 11 - Bogatyrëv and Jakobson, "Folklore as a Special Form of Creativity," from Steiner, ed., The Prague School, 32-46; Semyonova Tian-Shanskaya, 62-94 and 139-156
February 11:
Mussorgsky, "Night on Bald Mountain"; Film clip: Disney, Fantasia (1940); the authorship of folklore
For February 13 Bettelheim, 78-83, 90-96; Afanas'ev, "Misery," 20-24; "The Armless Maiden," 294-99; "The Magic Swan Geese," 349-51; "Two Ivans, Soldier’s Sons," 463-75; "Shemiaka the Judge," 625-27; Bettleheim, 282-91, 295-310; Zipes, "On the Use and Abuse of Folk and Fairy Tales with Children," in Breaking the Magic Spell, 179-205
February 13:
Typologies of tales; "Two Sibling" tales
For February 18 - Semyonova Tian-Shanskaya, 95-115; Aksakov, “The Little Scarlet Flower;” Afanas'ev, "The Frog Princess," 119-23; "The Snotty Goat," 200-02; Bottigheimer, "Silenced Women in the Grimms’ Tales," in Fairy Tales and Society, 115-31; Lieberman, "Some Day My Prince Will Come," in Zipes, Don’t Bet on the Prince, 185-200
February 18
“Animal Bride” and “Animal Groom” tales; Cocteau, La Belle et la Bête (1946); Disney, clip from Beauty and the Beast (1991);
Adamson/Jenson, Shrek (2001); shamanism
For February 20 - "Peter and Fevronia of Murom," Zenkovsky, 236-47; Afanas'ev, "The Wondrous Wonder, the Marvelous Marvel," 13-14; "The Princess Who Wanted to Solve Riddles," 115-17 (review); "The Mayoress," 141; "The Wise Little Girl," 252-55; "Old Man Zhenali," on Moodle
MIDTERM EXAM QUESTIONS ARE DUE TODAY!
February 20:
Feminism and fairytale scholarship; "Bad Wife" tales; "Wise Maiden" tales; riddles
For February 25 – Afanas'ev, "The Maiden-Tsar," 229-34; "The Merchant’s Daughter and the Maidservant," 327-31; "The Merchant’s Daughter and the Slanderer," 415-18; "Maria Morevna," 553-62; "The Feather of Finist, the Bright Falcon," 580-88; Seifert, "Marvelous Realities: ..." in Canepa, Out of the Woods, 131-51
February 25:
Strong heroines (or not), and more animal brides/grooms
For February 27 - Afanas'ev, "The Bad Wife," 56-57; "The Wise Maiden and the Seven Robbers," 134-40; "The Taming of the Shrew," 161-62; "The Indiscreet Wife," 226-67; "Husband and Wife," 369-70; "The Sea King and Vasilisa the Wise," 427-37; "The Goldfish," 528-32. Check out Barbara G. Walker’s A Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, BL458 .W34 1983. It's no longer in McCabe, but there is apparently a copy in the reference section of Canaday Library at Bryn Mawr.
For March 4 – Finish reading Tian-Shanskaya; Cashdan, "Objects that Love," 85-105; Afanas'ev, "Jack Frost," 366-69; "The Golden Slipper," 44-46; Warner, "Wicked Stepmothers," From the Beast to the Blonde, 218-40
March 4:
Cinderella tales; Self Theory looks at the witch; Zolushka (ballet, music and film clip); film clip from Disney, Cinderella (1950)
For March 6 - Bettelheim, 66-73; Afanas'ev, "Burënushka, the Little Red Cow," 146-50; "The Maiden Tsar," 229-34 (review); "Daughter and Stepdaughter," 278-79; "The Grumbling Old Woman," 340-41; "Vasilisa the Beautiful," 439-447
March 6:
"Objects that love"
Midterm exam is posted on the Moodle page and is due to me (in whatever way you prefer to subit it) by or before midnight on March 7.
For March 18 – Afanas'ev, "Baba Yaga and the Brave Youth," 76-79; "Baba Yaga," 194-95; "Koshchey the Deathless," 485-93; Chandler, “The Brother,” 83-87, “The Stepdaughter and the Stepmother’s Daughter,” 88-90
March 18:
Classic Villains: Baba Yaga and Koshchey the Deathless
Plan of your tale or other creative presentation due to me today by e-mail.
For March 20 - Propp, Morphology of the Folktale, 3-24, 149-55; Afanasev, "The Magic Swan Geese," 349-51 (review); Propp, 25-65; Afanas’ev "The Crystal Mountain," 482-84; "The Firebird and Princess Vasilisa," 494-497; "Knowledge Is the Most Precious," on Moodle
March 20:
Russian Formalism; Structuralist approaches to fairytales; Proppian analysis
For March 27 - Lotman and Uspenskii, "Binary Models in the Dynamics of Russian Culture...,” in Nakhimovsky and Nakhimovsky, eds., The Semiotics of Russian Cultural History, 30-66; "Ilya Muromets and Nightingale the Robber," in Bailey and Ivanova, An Anthology of Russian Folk Epics, 28-36; "Sadko" - handout; Afanas'ev, "Ivanushka the Simpleton," 142-45; "Foma Berennikov," 284-87; "Ilya Muromets and the Dragon," 569-75
March 25:
Folklore and linguistics; semiotics and verbal archeology; Epics and bogatyrs
For March 27 - Bottigheimer, "Eroticism in Tradition, Text and Image," in Grimms’ Bad Girls and Bold Boys, 156-166; Tatar, "Sex and Violence," in The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales, 3-38; Afanas'ev, Russian Secret Tales, "A Timorous Young Girl," 29-33; "No!" 42-44; "The Peasant and the Devil," 49-50; "A Crop of Prickles," 59-65; "The Enchanted Ring," 65-74; "The Excitable Lady," 77-79; "The Comb," 127-31; "The Greedy Pope," 148-50
Final version of your tale or whatever you chose to do is due!
March 27:
"Censored tales"
For April 1 - Bettelheim, 199-215; Pushkin, “The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Knights”; Afanas'ev, "Prince Ivan and Princess Martha," 79-86; "The Enchanted Princess," 600-611; "The Magic Mirror," on Moodle
April 1:
Jungian interpretations of evil; Snow White Tales; Disney, clip from Snow White (1937)
For April 3 - Afanas'ev, "Vasilisa the Beautiful," 439-47 (review); Chandler, “Marya Moryevna,” 46-54, “The Tsar Maiden,” 95-107; Afanas'ev, "Prince Ivan and Princess Martha," 79-86; "The Enchanted Princess," 600-611
April 3:
Jungian interpretations of evil; favorite villains; more on Snow White tales, Sleeping beauty tales
For April 8 - Ivanits, 5-12 (review); Chandler, Pushkin, “A Tale about a Priest and His Servant Balda,” pp. 8-17, “A Tale about a Fisherman and a Fish,” pp. 18-24; Pushkin, “The Tale of Tsar Saltan, of His Son, the Glorious and Mighty Prince Guidon Saltanovich, and of the Fair Swan-Princess,” on Moodle; "The Birch Girl," on Moodle; Ostrovsky, “The Snow Maiden” – check out the wonderful page-turning edition at https://archive.org/details/snegurotchkasno00rims [you don't have to read the whole thing].
April 8
Literary fairy tales, Pushkin's tales in verse; Ostrvskii, "The Snow Maiden"
for April 10
Gogol', "Viy," on Moodle; Afanas'ev, "Ivan the Cow's Son," 234-249; "The Cat's Son and Elena the Splendid Young Woman," on Moodle;
"The Sorceress," 567-68; "The Vampire," 593-98; Ivanits, "The Colonel and the Witch," 194-95
April 10:
More sorcery and magic; literary horror tales
For April 15
Pushkin, “The Golden Cockerel,” on Moodle; Tatar, "Fact and Fantasy: The Art of Reading Fairy Tales," in The Hard Facts,
39-57, on Moodle; Zipes, "Who’s Afraid of the Brothers Grimm?" in Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion, 45-70, on Moodle;
Miller, Folklore for Stalin, 3-24, 95-109
April 15: More on the literary fairytale; Russian literary censorship
For April 17
Marina Tsvetaeva, The Ratcatcher, transakted by Angela Livingstone (on Moodle, also available in the stacks in McCabe:
PG3476.T75 K713 2000)
This is a long poem in translation, which isn't easy to read even in the original, but the basic plot ("The Pied Piper of Hamelin")
should be familiar to many of you. If not, Google a quick retelling and read that first. Discussion question: What's the result of
making a familiar fairytale so hard to read, and adding so much non-traditional stuff to it?
April 17: Marina Tsvetaeva,The Ratcatcher: Folk and fairy tales as amusements or improvements for children, and other distortions
For April 22 – Zipes, "Breaking the Disney Spell," in Bell et al., From Mouse to Mermaid, 21-42; Arkady Gaidar, "The Tale of the Military Secret,” in Balina et al., Politicizing Magic, 123-30; Shukshin, "Before the Cock Crows Thrice," in Roubles and Kopeks (so it says on the spine), 107-163 and in Politicizing Magic, 345-80, on Moodle
April 22:
Marxist criticism; "vulgar" Marxist criticism
For April 24 - Cashdan, “Objects that Love,” 107-27 (review); Pavel Bazhov, “The Malachite Casket,” on Moodle; Evgeny Zamyatin, excerpts from “Fairy-Tales for Grown-up Children,” on Moodle; Stanisław Lem, “The Third Sally, or The Dragons of Probability,” from The Cyberiad, 85-102, on Moodle
April 24:
Self Theory looks at Magical Objects; review psychological approaches to fairy tales; Fairy Tales as an Aesopian genre in the socialist
era
For April 29 - Tatyana Tolstaya, "Date with a Bird," in On the Golden Porch, 116-130; "The Poet and the Muse," in Sleepwalker in a Fog, 117-31; Platonov, "Finist the Bright Falcon," in Chandler, pp. 334-351
April 29
Tatyana Tolstaya; Andrei Platonov; mythical birds
For May 1 - Nina Sadur, "The Cute Little Redhead" and "The Witch's Tears," on Moodle
May 1
Nina Sadur, "The Cute Little Redhead" and "The Witch’s Tears;" final discussion
Final three-hour take-home exam wil be posted on the Moodle page by May 2 and is due to me through Moodle or as an e-mail attachment or shared Google doc by the end of exam period (May 15).