to Ten Articles Main Page




Key-terms, Summaries, and Overlaps

in
Ten Articles by Roger D. Abrahams

by Eric Miller <eric@storytellinginstitute.org>


Note:  I compiled and commented upon these ten articles for Prof Abrahams upon his request when I was his Research Assistant, 1999-2001.

1) "Introductory Remarks to a Rhetorical Theory Of Folklore."
2) "A Rhetoric Of Everyday Life: Traditional Conversational Genres."
3) "The Complex Relations of Simple Forms."
4) "Toward an Enactment-Centered Theory of Folklore."
5) "Towards a Sociological Theory of Folklore."
6) "Folklore."
7) "In and Out of Performance."
8) "Ordinary and Extraordinary Experience."
9) "Play and Games."
10) "Our Native Notions of Story."
 

These articles discuss the use of traditional (conceptual and verbal) "objects" to perceive, shape, and comment upon new experience.  The articles discuss this processing from various angles and points of view.

The use of the male pronoun in these articles is indeed at times distracting.  Sometimes it is called for, as when discussing male folk artists and the special situations they face.  However, one might want to consider replacing
"man" with "people," "humanity," etc.  And one might consider a 'creative' solution to the pronoun issue, such as alternating between the female and male pronoun in successive articles.

***

Angles from which the process is considered:

1) "Introductory Remarks to a Rhetorical Theory Of Folklore."
Persuasion.

2) "A Rhetoric Of Everyday Life: Traditional Conversational Genres."
Two examples: proverbs and superstitions.

3) "The Complex Relations of Simple Forms."
Genre (social situation).

4) "Toward an Enactment-Centered Theory of Folklore."
Enactment, scene, event.

5) "Towards a Sociological Theory of Folklore."
Among occupational groups.

6) "Folklore."
Among ethnic groups in relocation and transition in general.

7) "In and Out of Performance."
Performance; the continuum between everyday life and performance.

8) "Ordinary and Extraordinary Experience."
Experience; the continuum between everyday life and extraordinary
experience.

9) "Play and Games."
Play/games; the continuum between everyday life and play/game.

10) "Our Native Notions of Story."
The creating and telling of stories.
 

***

Key-terms, summaries, and overlaps:
 

***
 

1) "Introductory Remarks to a Rhetorical Theory Of Folklore."

Key-terms:
Tools of persuasion.
Techniques of argument.
Projection of conflict in an impersonal milieu.
Anxiety situations.
Psychic distance.
Community values.

Summary:
This article calls for the unification of two approaches to verbal arts: the internal, aesthetic, formalistic approach of literary criticism (content and structure analysis); and the contextual, functionalistic approach of anthropology.  Kenneth Burke's concept of "naming" as a method or ordering and controlling one's environment is referred to.  The article states that all expression is designed to influence behavior, that verbal art objects are used in rhetorical attempts to further arguments, and that members of a community use these objects to cope with recurring social problem situations.

Overlaps:
2) "A Rhetoric Of Everyday Life: Traditional Conversational Genres."
 

***
 

2) "A Rhetoric Of Everyday Life: Traditional Conversational Genres."

Key-terms:
Proverbs and superstitions.
Conventional, institutional, impersonal forms of expression.
"Rage for order."

Summary:
This article explores in depth two particular types of verbal art objects -- proverbs and superstitions.  It is stated that proverbs are often used in response to social problems, whereas superstitions are expressed as efforts
to influence or control perceived natural or supernatural forces.

Overlaps:
1) "Introductory Remarks to a Rhetorical Theory Of Folklore."
 

***
 

3) "The Complex Relations of Simple Forms."

Key-terms:
Genres (social situations).
Static verbal art objects (set-pieces, memorized, committed to writing).
The level/range/continuum of folk verbal art object (fluid/static).
The level/range/continuum of performer-audience interaction (conversational/removed).

Summary:
This article delineates the inner workings of various types of folk verbal art objects in their social performative settings.  It applies the concept of genre to types of folklore, and states that in this context genre is largely defined by the social situation, and the relationships between participants.  The article often seems to be addressed to the to the non-folk-artist, and to the literary world: it explains what folk verbal art is and what the folklorist does.  There is encyclopedic consideration of numerous genres of verbal folkloric expression, mapping the terrain of traditional verbal arts.  These objects/genres/situations/ relations are considered within the spectrum between the conversational and the distanced (range of level of performer-audience interaction).

Overlaps:
All.
 

***
 

4) "Toward an Enactment-Centered Theory of Folklore."

Key-terms:
Stylizing, inverting, intensifying, framing, rehearsing.
Redundancy, predictability.
Self-consciousness.
The fiction of spontaneity.
Parameters of a situation; scenes.
Experiential resources to play with.
"The Real and the Strange, and the Really Strange."
Strange-making.
Mimesis, verisimilitude, artificial.

Summary:
This article calls for, and develops, for a "critical methodology which will both enable us to describe the patterns of behavior characteristic of the recurrent scenes within one culture and to carry out some sort of comparison of such system cross-culturally."

There is a reference to Kenneth Burke's idea that enactments involve an "arousing and fulfillment of desires."

The article states, "it is hardly my intention to write a 'how-to' manual on demystifying ourselves and others, on cracking social or psychological symbolic codes so that we can learn to read our own and one another's
motives more effectively."  My response was, Why not?!  (This disclaimer made me think of Eric Berne's, Games People Play: the Psychology of Human Relationships.)

The A Poetics of Everyday Life project is not mentioned by name, but this article definitely hints toward it.

Overlaps:
7) "In and Out of Performance."
8) "Ordinary and Extraordinary Experience."
9) "Play and Games."
 

***
 

5) "Towards a Sociological Theory of Folklore."

Key-terms:
Artisanal, industrial, technological, and service work.
High-risk male occupations.
Experiences-in-common.
Worker as artist, professional, real pro.

Summary:
This article argues that dehumanizing work routines are countered by the humanizing process of folklore.  It speaks of "the development of styles by which energies may be coordinated."

(Both this article and the following one find thriving folklore processes in situations in which the common wisdom in the field says folklore is dying out.  These articles argue that the folklore process is an inherent human function.)

Overlaps:
None in particular.
 

***
 

6) "Folklore."

Key-terms:
Adjust, adapt to host culture.
Emergent tradition.
Husband-and-wife culture brokers.

Summary:
This article explores the situations of members of ethnic groups in transition, most especially relocation.  It delineates how group members use folklore to deal with the new situation.

(Both this article and the preceding one find thriving folklore processes in situations in which the common wisdom in the field says folklore is dying out.  These articles argue that the folklore process is an inherent human function.)

Overlaps:
None in particular.
 

***
 

7) "In and Out of Performance."

Key-terms:
Theatricalized; scenarios, scripts, roles.
Engrossment, involvement.
Stylized, keyed, framed, intensified, formalized.
Self-conscious.
Strange-making.
Distanced from everyday life and the self, yet real.

Summary:
This article discusses how a social activity can become an aesthetic event.  It discusses how one can "use the license of performing to allow the more real self to speak out."

The article's concluding note states: "This essay is an excerpt from a book-in-progress, presently entitled A Poetics of Everyday Life.  In it, I attempt to distinguish between different types of play: games, festival and celebration, and performance.  Each type of expressive occasion is discussed in its pure form and in relation to the employment of its play motives in everyday interactions.  The argument is marked by the semantic limitations of drawing on the key terms as they are used in American English."

Overlaps:
4) "Toward an Enactment-Centered Theory of Folklore."
8) "Ordinary and Extraordinary Experience."
9) "Play and Games."
 

***
 

8) "Ordinary and Extraordinary Experience."

Key-terms:
Experience and authentication vs. authority, tradition, custom, and institution.
Typicality.

Summary:
This article posits that "experience" is a "new holy word" (as opposed to "authority").  William James and John Dewey are referred to as "high priests" of the literature on the subject; although the tradition is traced back to Ralph Waldo Emerson.  "The American pragmatic tradition of philosophy has brought [the] weighting of the everyday and transitional character of life as lived into the open" -- in contrast to the "metaphysical philosophical tradition [that] provided us in such notions as 'sublimity,' 'virtuosity,' 'genius.'"

Topics include ways and reasons that people isolate and elevate certain events from the everyday, translating everyday occurrences into 'experiences' and reportable stories.  "Emphasizing the common features of experience calls for a redefinition of culture itself, away from the officiated practices, the regulated and obligatory behaviors of our shared lives, and toward something more like the relative typicality of what happens again and again to individuals finding themselves in similar situations."  (Once again, a call for A Poetics of Everyday Life.)

Overlaps:
4) "Toward an Enactment-Centered Theory of Folklore."
7) "In and Out of Performance."
9) "Play and Games."
 

***
 

9) "Play and Games."

Key-terms:
Callois' four parameters of play: agon (contest), alea (chance), mimesis (representation), and ilinx (dizziness).
Sport, recreation, fun, amusement.
Rehearsals (for aesthetic play); drills, practice.

Summary:
This article is not so much about play/games as it is about the continuum between play/games and everyday life: "continuity between the 'worlds' of play and real-life are maintained at the same time as a profound disjuncture
between them is practiced."  A wide variety of play/games are considered, from "just fooling" to organized sports.  The distinction between (aesthetic) play and (agonistic) game is pointed out and discussed.

Overlaps:
4) "Toward an Enactment-Centered Theory of Folklore."
7) "In and Out of Performance."
8) "Ordinary and Extraordinary Experience."
 

***

10) "Our Native Notions of Story."

Key-terms:
The storymaking process.
Personal experience narrative.
Performance of traditional expressive units of behavior.
Account, report.
Testimony, giving witness.
A story's point, sense of purpose, message, lesson.
Higher Truths.
Empathize.
"The American Dream," "The Great American Success Story," "The Myth of the Golden Age."

Summary:
This article concerns ways in which people form and tell stories.  The article reviews how "For more than a decade, folklorists have been discussing the problems of expanding our notions of usable texts by including those stories which are told in the first person about recent and representative experiences," and argues that the differences between various types of personal experience narratives should be studied and respected.  As usual, the folklore process is found to be at work and play where some others may not have perceived it.

Overlaps:
8) "Ordinary and Extraordinary Experience."
 
 

<end>