COMPOSICIÓ I ESTIL FORMULARIS DE LA RONDALLA MERAVELLOSA

Abstract

The composite structure and style of fairy tales are highly dependent on formulas —most of them of an international character. These ingredients, which are inherited from tradition and repeated, with or without variations in different tales or in the same tale under similar circumstances, are plentiful, meaningful, and varied. They consist of conventional epithets, expressions and phrases to communicate essential ideas; archetypal settings, characters, episodes and plot outlines; codified symbols and numerical clichés. Formulas make the text aesthetically attractive, facilitate the task of the storyteller, and please the audience. Some of them are only employed by fairy tales, but others are shared with different kinds of folk tales and with other genres, like myth and popular ballad. The fairy tale begins with an opening formula and ends with a closing one. They are conventional expressions and sentences that, besides other functions, mark its frontiers and warn the audience of the fictional nature of the story. Their precise style and rigid structure depend also on the formulaic use of numbers. The number three, denoting plurality, is both a stylistic and structural formula given that many fairy tales are organized according to it. For example, often there is a tripling of characters, objects and successive episodes. Furthermore, there are many fairy tale families with three sons or sisters or in which the hero or heroine receives three magical gifts to be used on three different occasions, and so on. The number seven, which signifies “a lot,” is just a stylistic formula. It is not used for repeating episodes, because seven are too many; but it does serve to measure time, space, groups of people and other measurable items. Very often, a positive change only occurs after a period of seven days, weeks, months or years; and there are giants with three or seven heads and dragons with three or seven heads and tails, and so on. The characters of the fairy tales are archetypes clearly defined by one or a few distinctive features that have an effect on the plot and that are shown by the appropriate verbal formula and by their stereotyped behavior, which is equally formulaic. The fact that the youngest brother or sister is always the hero or the heroine and that the stepmother, stepsisters and mother-in-law are dangerous opponents also abides to a formula; and these are just two examples among many. The formulas to connect two narrative strands are scarce, because most fairy tales make use of single-strand narration. On the other hand, the formulas used by the storyteller to establish an immediate and continuous contact with the audience are frequent. They consist of rhetorical questions, exhortations and remarks directly addressed to the listeners so as to ask them for their attention or demand active cooperation. Finally, the composite structure of Catalan fairy tales follows a transcultural plot outline, as analyzed by Vladimir Propp, which orders all of its parts, themselves conventional. Catalan fairy tales, like others, are formulaic from beginning to end.