What is Folk Literature

Folk Literature is an academic term that appeared and became popular after the May Fourth New Culture Movement, referring to the oral traditions and rhetorical arts that are passed down, spread and enjoyed by the people in their living cultures and life worlds. In terms of literary categories, including myths, epics, folk legends, folk tales, folk ballads, folk narratives, folk theater, rap literature, proverbs, riddles, music and art.

Basic Concept

The oral tradition and rhetorical art that people pass on, spread and enjoy in their living culture and life world. Folklore is special in four aspects: orality, inheritance, collectivity, and variability. Its literary categories include myths, epics, folk legends, folk tales, folk songs, folk narratives, folk plays, raps, proverbs, riddles, operas, and ritual recitations. Of course, folklore also includes written literature, scriptures, scrolls, sung books, operas; patterned plastic arts; music and dance; festivals; electronic media and the Internet and other media carriers.

Folding and Editing Social Functions

Folklore is y rooted in the culture of life. Its social function is quite different from that of professional written literature. It is more closely attached to life. Folk proverbs, such as those countless ones in the Ganges, are the summaries of farmers, fishermen, craftsmen and so on, which summarize their life experience and guide their work in a piecemeal and often exquisite way. It was the textbook of their life and labor. Many labor songs are indispensable for them to adjust their breathing and movements and to inspire their emotions during various kinds of labor. Many ancient myths and legends passed down from generation to generation not only conveyed certain historical knowledge, but also cultivated the feeling of national unity. Many heroic legends of the defense of the countryside and the motherland have always inspired and empowered the people. Many stories, ballads and dramas depicting the resistance of the lowly, the oppressed and the abused have educated the people for a long time and cultivated their noble sentiments and character.

Folding Editorial Main Characteristics

Folding Orality

Since the masses of the people (including professional or semi-professional artists) were excluded from the use of the written word for a long period of history, they were generally excluded from the use of the written word. Therefore their literary creations could generally only be conceived, expressed (including performed) and disseminated in oral language, or even local vernacular dialects. Although most of the people in the new society are literate and use the written word, there are still many occasions when they need to sing or tell songs in the oral language. And in order to qualify as folklore (new folklore), it must basically use the forms of literature familiar to the people and handed down by the people over the centuries, such as stories and ballads, and be able to make the masses circulate them orally. Thus, orality -- the creation and dissemination of oral language -- is a major characteristic of folk literature.

Collapsing Collectivity

While the written creations of professional writers are mostly the products of individuals, folk literature can be said to be the collective creations of the masses. In the so-called collective creation, in terms of the thought, feeling and imagination of the content of the work, in terms of the form and artistic expression, and in terms of the ownership of the work, compared with the works of the professional writers, there is a peculiar problem of collectivity. But the important manifestation of this collectivity lies in the process of creation and circulation. In some works, there is collective participation from the very beginning, but more often than not, it is after the work has become "rough" that it is processed and refined by countless singers and narrators in the course of continuous singing and narrating. In this processing and refinement, not only the thoughts, feelings, imaginations and artistic talents of the singers are infused, but also the opinions and interests of the listeners. This is very different from the works of professional writers who are mainly individuals. Therefore, folklore works cannot be signed. A part of folk literature, which may still be quite good, is the result of the creation and processing of singers and storytellers who have special talents and rich experience among the masses. It has a certain degree of individuality. However, due to the similarity or similarity of life experience and literary upbringing, its individuality can be blended with the collectivity of the oral creation of the masses. Collectivity is another characteristic of folk literature.

Collapsing variability

The structure, form, and theme of folklore have been relatively stable during the long oral circulation. However, due to the instability of the oral language, the works in the process of circulation and the specific singing, often due to the time, geographical and ethnic differences, as well as the spreader's subjective thoughts and feelings and the audience's emotional changes, and other factors, and some variations. This kind of variation is frequent and massive in language (especially in prose works), while other factors such as the plot, structure, characters and even the theme of the work may also be varied. Especially when there is a great change in the society, the masses often change the traditional works to express the new life and thoughts and feelings, which is one of the reasons for the creation of some new works. This phenomenon, which was quite widespread, was seldom found in the written literature of professional writers in general. In the works of writers, there were cases where the texts of the previous and previous editions were not exactly the same, especially in the works of classical writers, where there were often discrepancies in the texts (hence the need for collation). However, this is after all a relatively isolated case, which is mostly caused by technical errors in copying, engraving, and typesetting, in addition to revisions made by the author himself or tampered with by others. It is not as frequent and extensive as the variation of folk literature. The variability of folklore is characterized by the historical, social, and ideological factors of the narrator, and is of positive significance to the researcher. This characteristic is closely related to the oral and collective nature mentioned above, or rather it is the natural fruit of their production. This is another characteristic of folklore.

Folding of inheritance

In the past, the people, being economically and politically disadvantaged, were not able to use tools such as writing to record and preserve their acquired knowledge, experience and created cultures, and generally relied on their actions and language to spread and inherit. This is true for customs and habits, and also for folklore. This kind of culture inherited by the masses collectively may not be as long-lasting as documents or antiquities, but its vitality should not be underestimated. There are some stories or proverbs which have been recorded by the literati two thousand years ago, but they are still alive in the oral tradition of the people today in basically the same or similar forms. It is not necessary to say that such works, which have been produced for thousands of years, are still in circulation among the people. Naturally, these stories or songs, which have been passed down orally from generation to generation, are inevitably subject to some changes in form and content. However, they are still alive and have become part of our modern living culture.

Because of the major changes of the times and the society, some genres of the oral literature, which used to be the only form of literature for the working people in history, may gradually disappear, the contents and forms of some genres cannot but undergo certain changes, and new genres unfamiliar to us may also appear. All these are possible and even inevitable. But the whole folklore will never disappear. It is because its medium of expression is the oral language which is the most common, the most vivid and the most energetic. As long as language exists, oral literature, which uses it as a medium to express people's thoughts, feelings and experiences, and which is a familiar and convenient form of expression, will continue to be produced, exist and be passed on. Among the people of China and the Soviet Union, in addition to the traditional folklore, new folklore, i.e., revolutionary legends, new jokes, new folk songs and new proverbs, was constantly being produced and circulated. In the past, the literati and scholars of the upper class, who could use writing, were still producing and spreading anecdotes, jokes, and rhymes about people verbally in addition to their written writings, such as some stories in the Shishu xinjian (New Sayings of the World) and some jokes about some celebrities in the notes of the Tang people.

The above four characteristics are not isolated from each other, on the contrary, they are related to each other (some of them have already been mentioned). These features are mainly suggested by the divergence of folk literature from the written literature of professional writers. They can, to a considerable extent, enable us to recognize the characteristics of this literature, but they are not the whole of it.