A Folklorist's Progress: Reflections of a Scholar's Life

Abstract

A Folklorists Progress: Reflections of a Scholars Life. By Stith Thompson. Edited by John H. McDowell, Inta Gale Carpenter, Donald Braid and Erika PetersonVeatch. Special Publications of the Folklore Institute No. 5. (Bloomington: Folklore Institute, Indiana University, 1996. Pp. xxi + 353, a tribute by Herman B. Wells, editors' preface, a daughter's perspective by Marguerite Thompson Hays and Dorothy Thompson Letsinger, introduction by Warren E. Roberts, seventieth birthday ballad tribute, illustrations, biographical glosses, selected bibliography of Stith Thompson's work, index of names and places. $20.00 paper) Like many other academics, but surprisingly few folklorists, Stith Thompson occupied some of his sunset years with writing his memoirs. The first volume, A Folklorists Progress, was completed in 1956, the second, appropriately titled Second Wind, in 1966. During my years as a graduate student at Indiana University's Folklore Institute in the early 1970s made a point of reading both works and found them useful but also a little disappointing. seemed that Thompson was holding something back, the two volumes read like a basic outline of the events of his life with elaborative points to be filled in later. Important as Thompson was as a scholar it was easy to see why the memoirs were unpublished. Indeed, it was surprising to hear that there were plans to publish A Folklorists Progress, but it is a nicer surprise to see that the manuscript has been improved in the process. Inclusion of several extensive quotes from Thompson's wife Louise's diaries is the most valuable addition here. These provide details that illuminate her husband's comments. One small example is found on page 141 where Stith briefly refers to a funeral attended in Derrynane, Ireland. Louise's more extensive, and colorful, discussion indicates that the matter was of greater interest to the Thompsons than one might otherwise think. The other important additions are 67 photographs and facsimiles, biographical data on 43 folklorists mentioned in the text, various prefatory pieces, and a selected bibliography of Thompson's publications. All of these items increase the book's value and interest. Lest the above remarks give the wrong impression, there is much of interest to folklorists in Thompson's original manuscript. Certainly the accounts of his study and work under Arthur Beatty at the University of Wisconsin; his discovery of Antti Aarne's Verzeichnis der Mirchentypen long after he had written a thesis in which it would have been useful; Kaarle Krohn's 1927 expression of confidence in Thompson to carry on his folktale work; the creation of the Summer Folklore Institutes (the first of which included as lecturer folksong popularizer John Jacob Niles, about whom Thompson offers the comment, I am not too enthusiastic over Niles's general methods, (183) one of the biggest understatements since Noah said, It looks like it could rain); and his failure to get published a proposed anthology of American folklore (which he considered one of his most significant failures), can all be so categorized. …