Original Tale Research Articles

ACCENTUATING STYLISTIC FEATURES IN THE NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE OF HIKAYAT GUL BAKAWALI

This article describes stylistic features found in Hikayat Gul Bakawali, an ancient love tale of Indian origin translated into Classical Malay in 1875 from an Urdu prose version composed by Nihal Chand Lahori entitled, “Mazhab-e ‘Ishq, urf Gul-e Bakawali,” (The Religion of Love, or the Rose of Bakawali), published in Calcutta in 1804. Although the original tale stems from within the Hindu world view, the Urdu version of 1804 firmly situates the tale within an Islamic framework. Under study is the first known Malay translation by Munsyi Syaikh Muhammad Ali bin Ghulam Husain al-Hindi, a literary scholar of Indian origin living perhaps in one of the cultural centres of the Malay peninsula, who acquired a fine mastery of Classical Malay literature and translated several religious and linguistic texts directly from Arabic as well. The thrust of the discussion is upon the translation and analysis of specific passages, presented successively with emphasis on certain themes or rhetorical strategies. The power of binary oppositions is emphasized on all levels, from that of the description of the characters, to oppositions on the semantic level in many passages. Of interest is the character development of the hero, a human prince in love with the Fairy Princess Puteri Bakawli. Analysed are the hero’s use of language in describing himself to attract the empathy and assistance of his addressees, as well as the narrator’s description of the hero’s bravery and persistence as a faithful lover never to give up on in his quests.

The Story of the Maiden Laciona: Plot and Motif Composition of the Handwritten Tale in the Context of Russian Fiction of the 17th – 18th Centuries

A handwritten tale of the middle of the 18th century The Story of the Maiden Laciona is known in a single copy. The tale tells about the escape of a girl with a lover from her parents’ house. To solve the question of whether the Russian fiction of the 17th – 18th centuries became a source of inspiration for the unknown author of the story, we applied the following methodology. Identifying a certain motive, we take into account its role in the plot of the Story and compare it with the function of the same motive in popular works of Russian fiction of the 17th – 18th centuries. In the typology of motives, the basis of our work was the MotifIndex by St. Thompson, taking into account the additions of D. P. Rotunda; in the classification of plots – the system for describing fairy-tale plots by A. Aarne and S. Thompson, modernized by H. J. Uther. As the analysis showed, the Story has no direct links with the works popular in Russia in the 17th – 18th centuries about the abduction of a maiden’s honor or about the abduction of a wife – stories on the plot of a picky bride and ATU 1419E. To search for possible sources of tale, the stories of the 17th – 18th centuries were drawn on related subjects or with similar motivic components. Based on the works of Thompson and Rotunda, the following motives were identified: an unfavorable prediction, paternal love in a daughter, a beautiful and intelligent girl, protection from men, boasting of a daughter, a secret lover, dates in the garden, a skilled musician, flight from home. In the details and motional components of the Story, parallels are found with the Story of Peter the Golden Keys, with the novel about Alfonzo Ramir and Angelica, with the Story of the Russian cavalier Alexander, perhaps with the Story of Yaropol Tsarevich and the Old Belarusian Story of Tristan. The Story is included in the so-called “fifth manuscript” of the combined manuscript from the Main Collection of the NIOR BAN (19.2.38). Based on the analysis of the paper, it can be concluded that the formation of the manuscript in which the Story is located dates back to the 1750s – 1760s. The literary setting of this original tale consists of popular love stories, most of which are found in other collections of fiction. The literary monument is being published for the first time.

Macerie, resti, residui nella poesia di Fabio Pusterla

Starting from the conceptual distinction between ruin and rubble, the article investigates and categorizes the recurring forms of residuality in Fabio Pusterla’s work in verse, tracing the essential coordinates of a poetics of the residue and of a “theory of the rest”. In fact, the natural landscape, devoid of any composure or coherence in its presentation, is in solidarity with the anthropic residue, for which the waste and debris of human passage are the signals and fragments that the eye tirelessly captures and enhances, predisposing them to be inhabited by language. At the heart of Pusterla’s poetic gesture it therefore seems possible to identify a practice of language that knows how to keep the relationship with time open, and therefore with the narrative, projecting a tale of origins, with its ancestral nobility, towards a looming future.

A study on the mythological references of the ancient Chaturvarnya system and social balance

An ancient system of social stratification called the Chaturvarnya system, sometimes referred to as the caste system, has had a profound impact on the development of Indian society and culture for millennia. This research examines the mythical underpinnings of the Chaturvarnya system's development and justification as well as its effects on the harmony of society in ancient India. The research tries to trace the legendary roots of the Chaturvarnya system through a thorough analysis of ancient scriptures, religious books, and epics including the Rigveda, Puranas, Manusmriti, Mahabharata, and Ramayana. The four varnas (classes)—Brahmins (priests and academics), Kshatriyas (warriors and rulers), Vaishyas (merchants and traders), and Shudras (laborers and service providers)—are assigned various societal responsibilities in these writings, which frequently include tales of divine origins. The study critically evaluates how the varnas and their responsibilities are portrayed in these mythological narratives.

｢심청전｣과 ｢부용전｣의 서사 비교와 그 교육적 의의

Based on the narrative similarities between Simcheongjeon and Buyongjeon, this study revealed the educational value through comparison of these two Classical novels. In addition, in relation to the secondary school teacher appointment examination, its educational significance was considered. First, the original tales of Simcheongjeon and Buyongjeon were compared. Since these two classical novels have similar narratives, the original tales are also similar. In these two novels, Self-sacrifice filial piety folktale, Human sacrifice folktale, Dragon king’s palace folktale, Revival folktale appear in common. On the other hand, there is a difference between Conception dream folktale and Gaining eyesight folktale appear in Simcheongjeon and Geomancy folktale and Getting medicine folktale appear in Buyongjeon. Second, the narrative structure of Simcheongjeon and Buyongjeon were compared. These two classical novels have similar narrative, so the narrative structure can be divided into four categories: birth and growth, filial piety and sell oneself into slavery, death and rebirth, and family reunion and wealth. The narrative structure of the two novels follows these four frameworks, and although there are narrative differences in detail, they generally have similar narratives. Third, based on the narrative similarity between Simcheongjeon and Buyongjeon, the educational significance was considered through the comparison of these two works. If the instructor make the learner figure out the original tales of Simcheongjeon, and substitutes it into Buyongjeon, the learner can easily figure out the original tales of Buyongjeon. Also, if the instructor presents the summary and comparison of the narrative structures of Simcheongjeon and Buyongjeon to the learners, the learners can compare the narrative similarities and differences of these two novels at a glance, so they can figure out the narrative structure of the two works quickly and clearly. The problem of identifying the original tales of classical novel and comparing of narrative structure among classical prose are often presented in the secondary school teacher appointment examination. In addition, comparison of the original tales and narrative structure between Simcheongjeon and Buyongjeon, which have similar narrative, may appear in future examination, so it is important to understand this.

How Disney Altered the Original ‘Sleeping Beauty’

Fairy tales have been associated with story time at home, in schools and libraries, and bedtime reading rituals for a long time. From Hans Christian Anderson to Brothers Grimm, fairy tales have been part of every generation, and each child has their favorite. Disney’s version of fairy tales has become the accepted version among people. This variation of the famous classic fairy tales and alteration of the original tale to a white man’s tale of love and glory is called Disneyfication. The domination of Disney over these fairy tales has pushed the original lesser-known tales to the background. The old original tales have vintage and rich historical records, and it is sad to see that the Disney interpretation is what everyone remembers in reality. The fairy tales were first told orally to groups of peasants worldwide, and their true beginnings are unclear. The stories were likely first recorded in the 14th century (Zipes, 2001,[13]). The stories evolved from being a kind of amusement for uneducated peasants to being embraced by the middle classes and the nobility as more and more authors started to write their versions of the classics. Each time an author/s altered the fairy tales, it was to match the preferences and deliver what was acceptable. This paper examines one such fairy tale ‘Sleeping Beauty’ and how Disney has altered it. Disney’s adaptation of the fairy tale reflects the company’s domination and how it took over the general psyche of people. This paper seeks answers to the questions: Does Disney’s animated version of fairy tales change the perception of fairy tales like Sleeping Beauty? Is the influence of Disney so dominant that their version is more recognizable to people than the original stories?

Squeezing Juice from the 'Fruits of the Caliphs:' Tastes, Contexts, and Textual Transplantation at a Late Medieval Egyptian Court

This article concerns themes of translation, movement, and context in its examination of the intentions behind the composition of Ahmad ibn ʿArabshah's (1389–1450) mid-fifteenth-century opus of animal fables and anecdotal advice literature, the Fakihat al-khulafaʾ wa mufakahat al-zurafaʾ (Fruits of the Caliphs and Witty Banter of the Stylish Folk). With some alterations, including the introduction of a substantial amount of historical material in its ultimate and penultimate chapters, Ibn ʿArabshah's Fruits of the Caliphs is primarily an expanded reworking of an earlier work, the thirteenth-century Marzban-nama (Book of Marzban) attributed to Saʿd al-Din al-Warawini. Like the Book of Marzban, the Fruits of the Caliphs is largely a collection of moralistic animal fables and anecdotes of wisdom, bound together within several smaller stories which comprise a larger framework story. The ten chapters of the Fruits of the Caliphs share much in common with the Book of Marzban although Ibn ʿArabshah completed significant re-writing of the original tales with historical asides, changed names, and observations unique to his own mid-fifteenth-century interpretation of the book. Because the work is primarily an Arabic translation of an earlier Persianate mirror, it proves challenging to analyze as an "original" work. Nevertheless, Ibn ʿArabshah attempted to modernize the book and in its Arabic form, update it for what we may assume must be a late medieval Cairene courtly audience. In addition to engaging with the curious title of the work and its latent meanings, this article contextualizes and explains the author's creation of the work in relation to his later career trajectory and rising reputation in the fifteenth-century Syro-Egyptian cultural milieu.

Sulla prima traduzione italiana de “La Belle et la Bête” di Mme de Villeneuve

Beauty and the Beast is one of the most famous fairy tales. Inventoried in the Aarne-Thompson catalog under the label 425C (The Girl as the Bear’s Wife), it boasts a host of illustrious literary ancestors and an even denser array of descendants. It is therefore surprising that so little attention has been paid to the work that lies at the origin of this rewriting process. La Belle et la Bête is a long tale that Mme de Villeneuve included in the collection La Jeune Américaine et les contes marins (1740). Sixteen years later, the same work will know a reduction under the pen of Mme Leprince de Beaumont (Le Magasin des enfants, 1756). It will be this second version, much more concise in form and content, to know more widespread. The short story of Mme Leprince de Beaumont will be translated into many languages since the eighteenth century, while the one of Mme de Villeneuve will fall into oblivion. The translation of the original tale will arrive in Italy thanks to Donzelli only in 2002. The aim of this study is to rediscover the specificities of this forgotten work through a linguistic-stylistic analysis, and then to measure the movement that the fairy tale makes under the impulse of translation. Attention will therefore be paid to what A. Berman defines as “zones signifiantes”, in particular the oxymoronic pair belle/bête and the term esprit, which are central to the development of the narrative. Although starting from precise textual zones, the translation analysis does not intend to limit to the contrastive aspect but aims to bring out the editorial project in relation with the concept of translational tradition.

Peran dongeng adaptasi pada masa pandemi

he fairy tales that are spread in society are not only original tales told by the Javanese people, but there are also some fairy tales which are adaptations from outside Java and even from other countries. This study intends to identify native Javanese fairy tales and adaptation tales. This research is also expected to make children aware of the importance of fairy tales in character building and their role during a pandemic. It is hoped that the results of this study can provide benefits for researchers, educators, students, and society in general in interpreting Javanese fairy tales that are scattered in society. The research method used is descriptive qualitative. The results showed that of the twenty tales in Javanese language, fifteen tales were identified as authentic Javanese folk tales and five tales included in the adaptation tales. Fairy tales are also proven to have an important role in shaping the character of children during a pandemic.

Visualizing Dunhuang: The Lo Archive Photographs of the Mogao and Yulin Caves

Visualizing Dunhuang: The Lo Archive Photographs of the Mogao and Yulin Caves

The Play of “The last Tale of Shahrazad” The Power of the Symbolic Violence in the Paradox of Employed Semantics with Inherited Semantics “A Semiotic View”

This study deals with the play of “The Last Tale of Shahrazad in the thousand and two night” by the Jordanian writer Jamal Abou Hamdan in terms of analysis or study pursuant to a hypnosis based on getting rid of the power of the symbolic violence in the events of the original tale through building an imaginary narrative world in which purification principle is attained. The play is to be read at two levels: the first level: the original inherited level overburdened with violence and the new parallel level: which differs in its semantics and in which the attempt of purification is performed but later this level shall come back to depend on violence as well. This analysis shall be done pursuant to the semiotic analysis. That will be divided into three elements: the semiotics of title, the semiotic of narration and the semiotic of characters.

Kyoto’s Gion Festival in Late Classical and Medieval Times: Actors, Legends, and Meanings

Kyoto’s Gion festival has arguably the best-documented history of all festivals (sairei) in Japan, and studies of its development have heavily influenced our understanding of festivals in general. Yet we must expect that our knowledge of this history is partial at most. Extant archives on its late classical and medieval history derive from a narrow group of festival actors, and are therefore intrinsically biased. This article looks at current reconstructions of the festival’s origin and development, addressing primarily the following questions: Which groups of actors are the historical record hiding from us? Is there a world of ritual action, beliefs, and concerns that we are missing entirely? Origin legends have been used throughout history to attribute meaning to the festival procedures. Today as in the past, these legends are always accompanied by narratives of continuity: at its core, it is implied, the festival remains unchanged. Such legends reflect the interests of actors and patrons of different ages, and changes in the festival’s context have required origin tales to be updated or even replaced. What do such narrative innovations reveal about the festival’s changing place in society at different historical junctures? Do such legends contain traces of the activities of actors who have since disappeared, taking their archives with them?

"Why Archaeology is important for Theology"

The Old Testament is clearly a mixture of myths and real historical figures with their events. There is no question about the contribution of mythology, since much of Genesis has been formed from common mythological accounts from all over the ancient Near East. The stories of Creation, the primordial couple, the Garden of Eden, Cain and Abel, the Great Flood, and much more, are a commonplace of narratives throughout the region. Although these accounts are mythological, it does not mean that they have not been shaped by real events. Specialists speculate about a great flood that took place in the Near East as a result of rising water levels at the end of the last Ice Age (around 5000 BC). This coincided at a time when the Agricultural Revolution had taken over the Fertile Crescent and Egypt. Various peoples of the Levant adopted mythological narratives and reformulated them to create their own unique and original tales. Some of the main figures of the Bible, such as Adam and Eve, Noah, Lot, finally the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) were their own compositions but, as can be seen with the patriarch Abraham, who was not an exclusive figure of the Hebrew people, his conversion to monotheism is, however, something peculiar to the spiritual creativity of the Jews. Here as in the composition of the New Testament, archeology is the necessary aid to locate the reality and the truth of sacred history and its development in human time.

Guillermo del Toro’s Political Fairy Tales

While critical attention has largely focused on Del Toro’s overt fairy tale Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), Del Toro’s Hollywood films similarly incorporate the mythic, moral and gothic qualities of classic fairy tales. His new fairy tales present vital contemporary lessons embedded in these archetypal journeys – and their audience’s memories. His free borrowings from fairy tales and popular culture deliberately connect the familiar to his uncanny worlds. This construction is most evident in his films Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) and The Shape of Water (2017). The contemporary politics of race, sexuality, gender and environmentalism are embedded within these original Hollywood fairy tales. This essay focuses on the intersecting political messages woven into Hellboy II: The Golden Army and The Shape of Water, messages amplified not obscured by their fairy tale delivery. Through rich textual references, intersections, and hidden subtexts, Del Toro creates new gothic fairy tales, with original protagonists, emerging from the margins. By resisting previous patriarchal and racial boundaries, these films challenge their audiences to embrace new paradigms.

Spinning ancient straw into contemporary gold: transforming folklore into supernatural crime fiction

ABSTRACT Folktales inspire me, as a reader, an academic and as a novelist. That the story has come from an aural tradition makes me wonder about its hidden truths. My creative practice is concerned with the question of how to balance supernaturalism with realism in the contemporary thriller, when adapting a folktale, in this case, ‘The Mermaid Wife’, a Selkie tale from the isle of Unst. My artistic process begins by extrapolating from the not-said, finding chinks in the perspective and narration of the original tale in order to form the basis of the questions posed by my novel. In both of the folktales I have novelised, I began with the assumption that the male point of view was dominant, whereas in both of my novels I choose to shift the perspective to the feminist. I argue here that by doing this, the supernatural aspects – or even magic – in the original tales form part of their rational, pre-scientific worldview. In my novel, by contrast, the supernatural is transformed into a metaphor for the female experience. I recognise, nonetheless, that my reading of the folktale as ‘male’ and the novels as ‘female’ raises some troubling and difficult questions.

Voice and the Sleepwalking Body

This article explores the relation between body and voice in the performance of a contemporary opera, Ficarra and Whittington's The Empress's Feet, based on a Chinese tale relating the origin of the practice of foot binding. The tale relates the ancient practice to cure a queen from bouts of sleepwalking that afflicted her. I initially explore the opera's complex formal structure, its central themes and the way it transforms the original tale. I will then develop some of the significant aspects, imaginary as well as factual, of both the practice of foot binding and the phenomenon of sleepwalking. I suggest that the opera not only relates itself thematically to the tale and through it to the practice of foot binding, but also suggests a further parallel between foot binding and a form of bodily mutilation that is associated with the development of the medium of opera in the West, namely the phenomenon of the castrato. The threefold consideration of foot binding, sleepwalking and the voice of the castrato will serve to reveal a moment of liberation, at the heart of the opera – call it the agency or voice given to the feet ‘unbound’. I will conclude with an account of a production of The Empress's Feet which I directed in 2014, based on the interpretation suggested in this article.

Using Fractals and Turtle Geometry to Visually Explain the Spread of a Virus to Kids: A STEM Multitarget Activity

A lockdown was ordered in Spain on March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The first author, advised by the second author, developed a tale and video (in Spanish) with a simplified explanation of virus propagation for their teenager son, justifying the need to stay at home. The tale and video relate the spread of the virus to fractal trees and aim to raise awareness about the transmission of the disease. The video is available from the web page of the Instituto de Matemática Interdisciplinar of the first author’s university. The code was implemented in Scratch 3 and takes advantage of the “Turtle Geometry” (there is an ulterior version using Maple, available from Mapleprimes). This article includes the English version of the original tale, describes the Scratch 3 code, and details possible derived STEM activities. We plan to experiment them in the classroom during the 2020–2021 academic year.

Воплощение мифа о женщине-змее в повести А. Ремизова «Мелюзина» и армянские предания

In world folklore, both the Myth of the Snake-woman and the motive of the birth of “wonderful children” from half-humans-half animals are widespread. Melusine is a fairy, a heroine of a folk tale of Celtic origin. Often depicted as a female-snake or female-fish from the waist downwards, sometimes with two tails. The Legend of Melusine goes back to the mythological motif of the “sacred marriage” of a chthonic being with a celestial deity, which was then transformed into the fabulous motif of the “wonderful spouse” (AaTh 400-459). The folk legends we have considered about mermaids and other travesty of female characters in snakes reveal a direct connection with the cult of the goddess of love and fertility. All similar characters, like Melusine, reveal a connection with lunar symbolism, as well as with the other world. The moon and stars have a sacred symbolic meaning in the work of A. Remizov and accompany fragments of Melusine’s appearance, and are also present at all important and fateful events, such as the death of Emery, the Meeting of Raymond and Melusine at the source, and the Wedding. We have revealed the similarity of Melusine’s image with fish-like and snake-like characters in Armenian folklore and mythological texts. The large luminous stone on Melusine’s forehead echoes the motif of the magic stone on the head of the king of snakes or frogs. In the beliefs of the people, snakes personify spirits, the souls of ancestors. They live in their old homes and protect them. Both the serpent and the spirit of the ancestor are interested in the fertility of the clan and the fertility of the fields. Structurally A. Remizov’s Story consists of three parts: “The Story of the Story”, “Melusine”, “Kolovorot”. In his treatment of the legend of Melusine A. Remizov introduced psychological motivations for the actions of the heroes. As a result of the study of the Legend of Melusine in the literary processing of A. Remizov, we can conclude that Melusine reveals the closest connection with the pagan deities of fertility, as well as all three fairy sisters are in one way or another connected with the Armenian Kingdoms and Armenian mythology.

Жанрово-коммуникативная специфика произведений В.М. Шукшина: композиционно-синтаксический аспект

The paper offers a look at the specifics of genres in the literary V.M. Shukshin’s works. The patterns of scenario transformation of his cinematic prose are analyzed. An original or secondary tales are set in the center of his genre system. They were created mainly for semiotic translation. The tales for theater and cinema reveal the syncretism of these art forms. The stories were the primary texts for the secondary scripts-tales. The main feature of their scenario transformation is the increase in its volume. It’s not so much due to the introduction of new episodes, but rather due to a change in the volume-pragmatic division, compositional and syntactic focusing of the perceptual visual field, and variation of the image plans. The main feature of the novel’s scenario transformation is the reduction of its volume. It’s due to the elimination of optional text fragments and statements and the diverse montage-driven composition technique. Shukshin’s work on scenario self-interpretation of prose was carried out not only at the macrotext level, but also at the statement’s microcomposition. It was associated with the change in their punctuation-graphic arrangement, with the choice of union or non-union syntactic connection and the means of its expression. The genre-communicative specificity of Shukshin’s works was motivated by his goal setting for their semiotic translation for theater or cinema, his deep understanding of the screenplay as a new kind of literature.

Little Thieves by Margaret Owen

Reviewed by: Little Thieves by Margaret Owen Kate Quealy-Gainer, Editor Owen, Margaret Little Thieves. Holt, 2021 [512p] Trade ed. ISBN 9781250191908 $18.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9781250191915 $10.99 Reviewed from digital galleys Ad Gr. 7-10 Discarded by her mother, used as a pawn by her godmothers Death and Fortune, and betrayed by her royal mistress, Vanja Schmidt grabs, quite literally, the chance to change her fate by stealing Princess Gisele’s enchanted pearls and taking on her appearance. Unsatisfied by simply living among nobility, she also steals from them, but she gets in over her head after thieving the prized possession of a Low God, and now she’s got only a few weeks to make amends before she transforms into gems. Complicating matters further are the appearance of a nosy prefect investigating Vanja’s burglaries and the return of her boorish and apparently murderous fiancé. This retelling of “The Goose Girl” is unwieldy at times, but it is fortunately firmly anchored in Vanja’s biting, acerbic narration; this is a girl who does not suffer fools and is clever enough to have a back-up plan for her back-up plan, neither of which involve loyalty or love. It’s a bit disappointing then when her villainy is so easily softened by the interest of a handsome guy, but the crumbling of her bravado outside of that relationship is painfully believable as current circumstances trigger memories of past traumas. While more details about Death’s and Fortune’s roles would have certainly been welcome, there’s enough dark magic and folkloric elements here to effectively echo the sinister nature of the source material. Readers of Hale’s The Goose Girl (BCCB 11/03) and Khanani’s Thorn (BCCB 2/20) might appreciate this recasting of the original tale’s traitorous maid. Copyright © 2021 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois