Folk Hero Research Articles

Till Eulenspiegel: His Adventures

In the year 1500 after Christ's birth, as one reckons, I, N., have been asked by various people to collect (for their sake) these accounts and tales and to show how in times gone by a clever, foxy and roguish son of a farmer was born in the Duchy of Brunswick and named Till Eulenspiegel. Till Eulenspiegel is the most famous of German folk heroes, a roving jester whose exploits, translated into dozens of languages, and influencing composers such as Richard Strauss, have fascinated and delighted millions for nearly 500 years. Eulenspiegel's adventures, mocking pompous people of all sorts, have never fully been translated into English. Censored versions reduce to childishness his penetrating satire of late medieval and Renaissance life. This is the translation of the earliest known complete edition of 1515, with interpolations from previous fragments. Its introduction recreates the historical context of the tales, while exploring their meanings and considering the controversial question of their authorship. This edition also includes the entire set of 16th-century woodcuts, which illustrate Till Eulenspiegel's piercing and bawdy wit.

Entrepreneurship: Some Popular Impressions and New Information

AbstractStories of entrepreneurial successes range from the classical rags-to-riches story to the less-dramatic tale of steady growth through diligence, perseverance and perspiration. The successful entrepreneurs are folk heroes to many people who are contemplating a venture. Yet, we know very little about them. What are they like? How do they think? How do they relate to employees? This paper synthesizes the advice of over 150 entrepreneurs and professional managers and offers their perspective on improving entrepreneurship and small-business management.

Revenuers and Moonshiners: Enforcing Federal Liquor Law in the Mountain South, 1865-1900.

The federal government's attempt to enforce civil rights measures during Reconstruction is usually regarded as a failure. Far more successful, however, was the collection of federal excise taxes on liquor during the same period -- an effort that secured for the government its single most important source of internal revenue. In Revenuers and Moonshiners Wilbur Miller explores the development and professionalization of the federal bureaucracy by examining federal liquor law enforcement in the mountain South after the Civil War. He addresses the central questions of the conditions under which unpopular federal laws could be enforced and the ways in which enforcement remained limited. The extension of federal taxing power to cover homemade whiskey was fiercely resisted by mountain people, who had long relied on distilling to produce an easily transported and readily salable product made from their corn. As a result, the collection of the tax required the creation of the most extensive civilian law enforcement agency in the nation's history, the Bureau of Internal Revenue. The bureau both regulated taxpaying distilleries and combated illicit production. This battle against moonshiners, Miller argues, implemented by the Republican party's vision of a federal authority capable of reaching into the most remote parts of the nation. Miller concentrates his analysis on the revenuers, but he nevertheless draws a clear picture of the mountain people who resisted them. He dispels traditional views of moonshiners as folk heroes imbued with a stubborn individualism or simple country folk victimized by outside forces beyond their control or understanding. Rather, Miller shows that the men (and sometimes women) who made moonshine were members of a complex and changing society that was a product of both traditional aspects of mountain culture and the forces of industrialization that were reshaping their society after the Civil War. Originally published in 1991. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

Iconography and Collective Memory: Lincoln's Image in the American Mind

Existing approaches to collective memory explain away images of the past by relating them to their economic, political, and social “sources.” The present case study of Abraham Lincoln suggests a modification of these views, one that includes as a key element the agents who connect memory and social structure. As the U.S. entered World War I, the agents of Lincoln's memory debated which version of the Lincoln image to commemorate—the epic hero or the folk hero; the strong, dignified Lincoln or the tender-hearted, common man. The public controversy over George Gray Barnard's and Augustus Saint-Gaudens's statues articulated the tension between these two images. Different conceptions of Lincoln's appearance reflected different public views of modern democracy. Since this limited the range of Lincoln images that commemorative agents could promote, a structure-centered approach that treats public readiness to appreciate or reject different ways of portraying the past must supplement the agent-centered approach to collective memory.

Hackers

In his book, Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution (Doubleday, 1984), Steven Levy documents the linguistic evolution of the word "hacker." He argues that among computer aficionados the term has been long used to express respect and admiration for another's superior computer programming expertise. In the last ten years (particularly among members of the law enforcement community), however, the concept has taken on an extremely negative connotation and is regularly used to refer to electronic vandals and computer criminals. Yet, recent surveys of computer crime victims indicate that the typical computer criminal is an employee, not an outsider trying to "hack" into the system. In trying to explain this paradox, comparisons are made with earlier historical periods when highwaymen and train robbers were also viewed by law enforcement as criminals but considered by their peers as folk heroes. These modern day "electronic highwaymen" are innovative deviants who prey on the inherent vulnerabilities of our pioneering (and sometimes unpopular) communication and information corporations. The social construction of "hackers" as the principal focus of computer criminalization is explained by examining the specific characteristics of the victims, offenses, offenders, and law enforcement agencies within the scope of the larger computer and information technology revolution.

From Trickster to Badman: The Black Folk Hero in Slavery and Freedom.

From Trickster to Badman: The Black Folk Hero in Slavery and Freedom.

Mythicizing the Unspeakable

A reading of three popular films about the Vietnam war (The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now, and Rambo) places them against historical grids of war narratives; such popular and folk heroes as Tarzan, Superman, Batman, cowboys, and private eyes; and myths of social identity. The films express both the polyvalent symbols for all in war as well as the symbolic effort to recuperate Vietnam in imagination if not in fact.

From Trickster to Badman: The Black Folk Hero in Slavery and Freedom

To protect their identity and values, Africans enslaved in America transformed various familiar character types to create folk heroes who offered models of behavior both recognizable to them as African people and adaptable to their situation in America. Roberts specifically examines the Afro-American trickster and the trickster tale tradition, the conjurer as folk hero, the biblical heroic tradition, and the badman as outlaw hero.

Review: From Folklore to Fiction: A Study of Folk Heroes and Rituals in the Black American Novel by H. Nigel Thomas

Review: <i>From Folklore to Fiction: A Study of Folk Heroes and Rituals in the Black American Novel</i> by H. Nigel Thomas

The Will to Remember: The Lesbian Herstory Archives of New York

We should add that [she] draws less and less from [her] past. The colonizer never even recognized that [she] had one; everyone knows that the commoner whose origins are unknown has no history. Let us ask the colonized [herself]: who are [her] folk heroes? [her] great popular leaders? [her] sages? At most [she] may be able to give us a few names, in complete disarray, and fewer and fewer as one goes down the generations. The colonized seems condemned to lose [her] memory. (The Colonizer and the Colonized, Albert Memmi)

I Returned and Saw Under the Sun: Padre Martinez of Taos by E. A. Mares

Reviews 285 28, “Cultural Trends,” that discusses the emergence of great writers in the Golden State: Robinson Jeffers, John Steinbeck, and William Saroyan—all mavericks. “Contemporary California Culture,” Chapter 34, begins with an exami­ nation of the Beats, then discusses such writers as Richard Brautigan and Ken Kesey. Predictably, the more contemporary the writers, the less certain the judgment, and Rawls’ assertion that “the most important figure among new California writers” is the brilliant and quirky Joan Didion is more apt to play well in New York where Didion built her reputation than in California where Maxine Hong Kingston, Luis Valdez, Gary Snyder, James D. Houston, Gary Soto, and even Wallace Stegner, among many others, seem in far better touch with dynamic reality. Nonetheless, this is a first-rate book, the standard by which others are and should be judged. That “Bean &Rawls” gives so much attention to literature and the other arts is evidence of an attempt to provide a balanced and compre­ hensive view of our most populous and controversial state. GERALD HASLAM Sonoma State University I Returned and Saw Under the Sun: Padre Martinez of Taos. ByE. A. Mares. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1989. 101 pages, $22.50/ $10.95.) In I Returned and Saw Under the Sun, Antonio José Martinez, Priest of Taos in the nineteenth century, returns from the dead to tell about his life and work. Moreover, he uses his dramatic monologue in seventeen scenes to defend himself against unjust charges by Bishop Jean Baptiste Lamy of Santa Fe, who excommunicated the popular priest in the late 1850s. Martinez also accuses Willa Cather of inaccuracy in her fictionalized account of him in Death Comes for the Archbishop, the only widely known portrait of Padre Martinez. In the course of the play, Martinez speaks to both Lamy and Cather, or rather to their invisible ghosts, because neither of the two appears on the stage. A historian, Mares is understandably very interested in the New Mexican renegade priest who lived at the time when New Mexico passed from Spanish to Mexican to American rule. In his long historiographical introduction, Mares describes the dual purpose of his drama. He intends to depict an “accu­ rate” portrait of Martinez and hopes that his play will contribute to a reassess­ ment of Martinez’s “historical significance.” Cather’s “almost entirely nega­ tive” portrait of Martinez prompted Mares to write his play. Contrary to Cather, Mares sees Martinez as a misunderstood New Mexican “folk hero” who understood the cultural mix and conflicts of his home state far better than Cather or Lamy. 286 Western American Literature While Mares may have a reasonable proposition here, his insight does not by itself guarantee a particularly dramatic play. Mares should have given Martinez, who throughout the drama hopes to speak to Lamy and Cather, the opportunity to actually do so instead of merely “replying” to them. Also, neither a dramatist nor a novelist should primarily strive for historical accu­ racy, as Mares argues. Fortunately, though, Mares is a fine writer of prose— I hesitate to say dialogue—so that his monodrama makes for entertaining and informative reading for audiences in and out of New Mexico. RUDOLF ERBEN University of New Mexico Flowers of Desire. By Frederick Manfred. (Salt Lake City: Dancing Badger Press, 1989. 240 pages, $12.95.) No Fun on Sunday. ByFrederick Manfred. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990. 278 pages, $19.95.) These are beautiful novels. Flowers of Desire is about sex. Of course, prudes will be horrified. They’ve attacked Manfred before and here’s his all-out answer: sex on nearly every page, sex at its worst as well as its best, sex as it really is, not just “a beautiful gift from God,” as idealists describe it. To readers who believe the young should be protected from such writers, Manfred’s teenage heroine, Carla, replies that kids should be told the “truth, the truth. So they won’t be too shocked by what they run into later on.” Most students will probably like the book (though most teachers will be afraid to assign it) because it’s about Carla’s sexual education. Her story will keep you...

A new folk hero from Connecticut.

A new folk hero from Connecticut.

From trickster to badman: the Black folk hero in slavery and freedom

From trickster to badman: the Black folk hero in slavery and freedom

From folklore to fiction: a study of folk heroes and rituals in the Black American novel

Learn It to the Younguns: Passing on Folk Wisdom by Daryl Cumber Dance Preface Introduction Afro-American Folklore: Identification and Interpretation Preachers and Bad Niggers Tricksters Rituals

The Thoreauvian Pilgrimage: The Structure of an American Cult

rHE subject of canonization has prompted much innovative work in recent American literary history and theory. This scholarship has established that canons are culture-specific instruments of promotion and exclusion, and it has begun to explain canonical formation and change in terms of models of cultural hegemony more complex and hard-headed than traditional historicists and New Critics employed: models that take into account not just aesthetic fashion and the philosophical temper of the age but also the more tangible power conferred by race, gender, and class. Since it began as a challenge to the received conception of who are the major authors deserving close study, the newer scholarship has understandably concentrated on the claims of figures marginalized by the received canon and on questioning the unexamined assumptions behind such exclusions. Little has been written about the phenomenon of canonical investment itself: that is, the rituals of remembrance through which those regarded for whatever reason as literary heroes become enshrined. Hence the present article, which examines the major forms of public reverence for Thoreau in particular and Transcendental Concord in general. Since Thoreau has become the closest approximation to a folk hero that American literary history has ever seen, and since Concord is still America's most sacred literary spot, this will be a case study representative in the Emersonian rather than in the statistical sense. But by the same token it should help to show that the sacral vocabulary drawn from biblical studies and hagiography by critical discussions of literary canonization points to patterns of behavior and experience that run deeper than such analogizing generally claims, patterns that substantiate the present climate of skepticism toward

The Chainsaws of Greed

brief, made none of the mistakes that all the short-sighted lumber companies made. A California Newsreel documentary, Mad River: Hard Times in Humboldt County, made in 1982, excoriated the entire industry for its miscalculations of its market, its failures toward its workers and its destruction of its trees-but took time out to mention Pacific Lumber, as proof of the fact that good business and good citizenship could, with wise management, go hand in hand. Then came the villains, jetting in from Wall Street: the takeover artists, the sharks, Charles Hurwitz' Maxxam Inc, recently spun out of Federated, soon to be joined with MCO, who gobbled up the company's stock, bought off the management, threatened the workers' jobs and benefits, and immediately doubled the timber harvest to pay down the junk-bond financed debt. Overtime pay fattened the workers' wallets but threatened long term security; environmentalists were horrified; state and national legislatures contemplated action but took none; the courts, to whom all resorted almost immediately, tentatively fumbled through new territory, not supporting any side consistently. Despite, or because of, the fairytale quality of its story, Pacific Lumber crystallizes several of the most important ethical issues confronting American Business, in particularly poignant and understandable form: the company is small, the trees are large and well loved, the loggers are folk heroes, the financiers are folk villains, and

Bazarov, Prince Hal, and the Virginian

M A X W E S T B R O O K The University of Texas at Austin Bazarov, Prince Hal, andthe Virginian In Owen Wister’s The Virginian, most of the hero’s literary prefer­ ences are predictable. He does not like the unnamed detective novel Molly loans him because he finds it a pointless contest between the author and the reader.1The Mill on the Floss “ ‘talks too much’” (122). Sir Walter Scott tells a “ ‘right fine story’” (132), but Jane Austen puts him to sleep (301). Two of the Virginian’s literary preferences, however, are not so pre­ dictable. His favorite heroes are a member of the royal family of England and a Russian nihilist. William Shakespeare’s Prince Hal and Ivan Tur­ genev’s Bazarov may seem, at first glance, unlikely choices for America’s paradigmatic cowboy hero. The Virginian’s preferences, however, are as basic to his character as his decision to work for Judge Henry rather than ride as an outlaw with Steve. He finds Prince Hal a “jim-dandy,” and Part I of Henry IV is “ ‘bedrock’” drama (302). The death of Bazarov in Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons has moved him so deeply that he “ ‘pretty near cried’” (122). Examination of the Bazarov and Prince Hal compari­ sons suggests that The Virginian is a literary and political con game. Pre­ sented to readers as the story of a just-plain-folks cowboy hero, the novel is, in actuality, a cynical attack on just plain folks and on anyone foolish enough to believe in the vote and in rule by law. If taken at face value, the Virginian is simply a cowboy hero. He is brave, judicious, responsible, honest, and intelligent. He embodies a patriarchical version of American values in the democratic form of a working cowboy. He begins with nothing and ends with everything—victory over his enemy, conquest of his lady, success in business—and is thus an encour­ agement to all of us who start out poor and dream of glory. If we ordinary 104 Western American Literature men and women could not give Balaam a righteous beating, we would certainly like to; and the vicarious satisfaction of seeing the Virginian beat him half to death gratifies some—depending on the individual reader— more or less conscious desire for primal justice. When the Virginian recalls his experiences in atavism, however, his readers become selective. Those who do not want to hear their cowboy hero say he would like to “ ‘become the water’” and “ ‘become the trees’” (428) simply blink and politely wait for the next act. When the Virginian is reduced almost to tears by the death ofTurgenev’snihilist, when it becomes clear that Wister’s folk hero is actually an aristocrat, a superior person who is proud of his superiority, most readers are courteous enough to silently pick and choose among what has been offered by a much-loved literary hero. To reject the Virginian because he is a male chauvinist with an ideologically-dictated blend of superiority, humility, idealism, and cynicism would seem to be easy; but the memory can be taught to reject any evi­ dence which does not confirm our prejudice. A few million readers simply like this paradigmatic folk hero and refuse to register information which might diminish or corrupt his image. Those who make a living by reading books and close readers in gen­ eral, of course, do not pass over discrepancies or, at least, when problems are discussed they tend to focus, to reconsider. America’s reading public, however, has long admired a supposed hero of democracy who finds his own heroes in the imperialistic son of a usurper, a cynical Russian intellec­ tual, and a boss who believes that the purpose of Christianity is to teach aristocrats a parlor trick they can use to control their inferiors.2 The Virginian’s literary preferences, furthermore, are not—as most readers must assume—innocent diversions, asides Wister put in among the events of the real story. The Virginian is compared to Prince Hal and then to Bazarov in ways that are specific and purposeful. Like Prince Hal, the Virginian is introduced as a hell...

From Folklore to Fiction: A Study of Folk Heroes and Rituals in the Black American Novel

From Folklore to Fiction: A Study of Folk Heroes and Rituals in the Black American Novel

Women, Nicknames, and Blues Singers

References Blount, Roy. “Games,” Esquire, 87 (1977), 22–26 Busse, Thomas. “Nickname Usage in American High School,” Names, 31 (1983), 300–306. Dexter, Emily. “Three Items Related to Personality: Popularity, Nicknames, and Homesickness,” The Journal of Social Psychology 30 (1949), 155–158. Feather, Leonard. The Encyclopedia of Jazz, New York: Bonanza Books, 1962. Harré, Ron. “What’s In a Nickname?” Psychology Today, 31 (1980), 78 +. Harris, Sheldon. Blues Who’s Who: A Biographical Dictionary of Blues Singers, New York.: Da Cappo Press, 1979. Lawson, Edwin. “Men’s First Names, Nicknames and Short Names: A Semantic Differential Analysis,” Names 21 (1973), 22–27. Skipper, James. “Feminine Nicknames ‘Oh, You Kid,’ From Tilly to Minnie to Sis,” Baseball Research Journal 11 (1982), 92–96. Skipper, James. “The Sociological Significance of Nicknames of Baseball Players.” Journal of Sport Behavior, 7.1 (1984): 28–33. Skipper, James. “Baseball ‘Babes’ –Ruth and Others.” Baseball Research Journal. 13 (1984): 24–26 Skipper, James. “Nicknames, Folk Heroes and Assimilation: Black League Baseball Players, 1884–1950.” Journal of Sport Behavior 8.1 (1985): 100–114. Skipper, James. “Nicknames of Notorious American Twentieth Century Deviants and Criminals.” Deviant Behavior 6 (1985): 99–114. Skipper, James. “Nicknames, Folk Heroes and Jazz Musicians.” Popular Music and Society 10.4 (1986): 51–56. Skipper, James. “Nicknames, Coal Miners and Group Solidarity.” Names 34 (1986): 134–145. Skipper, James. “Nicknames of Football's Greatest Players: A Test of the Decline of the Folk HeroSsyndrome.” Mid-South Sociological Association. Mobile, Alabama,October 1988. Skipper, James and Paul Leslie. “Nicknames and Blues Singers, Part I: frequency of Use, 1890–1977.” Popular Music and Society 12:1 (1988): 37–48. Smith, Elsdon Coles. The Story of Our Names. Detroit: Gale Research Co.,1970. Van Buren, Henry. “The American Way With Names.” Topics in Cultural Learning, Ed. Robert Brislin. Honolulu: East-West Center, 1974, 67–86.

Folk hero modeling therapy for Puerto Rican adolescents

Puerto Ricans are concentrated in the Northeastern United States in predominantly low socioeconomic status, urban Hispanic communities. Due to a constellation of stressors associated with their minority status, bilingualism and bicultural conflicts, Puerto Rican adolescents are at high risk of mental disorder. Research has shown that factors such as migration experiences, low socioeconomic status, and Hispanic values conflicting with Anglo culture (e.g., familism, spiritualistic and folk beliefs, orientation to time) are associated with higher rates of psychiatric symptomatology in the Hispanic population. Community mental health resources are under utilized, and traditional therapy modalities have had limited success in remedying the emotional and behavioural problems of Hispanics. This paper reviews several approaches to the delivery of culturally sensitive mental health services to Hispanic populations and describes the development of a new modality for Puerto Rican adolescents. The modality presents Puerto Rican folk heroes and heroines in a modelling therapy targeted towards enhancing adolescents' pride in their ethnic heritage, self-esteem, and adaptive coping with stress. The therapy was implemented on a small-group basis with 21 Puerto Rican adolescents, some of whom participated with their mothers. A clinical evaluation of the therapy was conducted by summarizing therapists' progress reports on each participant and by interviewing the participants about their impressions of the therapy experience. Progress reports and participants' self-reports indicated that the adolescents increased in self-disclosure and self-confidence; they gained pride in being Puerto Rican; they learned adaptive mechanisms for coping with stress; and they enjoyed learning about famous Puerto Ricans and their culture.