Myths & folktales: the prototypes of all narratives? [short version]
The short version…
By simple virtue of the placement along the human temporal spectrum of the oral telling and retelling of myths, folktales and fairytales prior to that of written retellings, that they are the prototypes and origins of all narrative. There was speech before there was writing and therefore contemporary narratives, immortalised in all their media and versions, must have as their prototypes the myth, fairytales and folktales ‘of old’ as that is, historically, where our concepts of storytelling, the structures and links therein, derive from. However, the full gamut of narratives cannot be reduced down to the theoretical models of Propp, Lévi-Strauss or even Todorov because they were not formulated in the face or light of modern and postmodern narratives. Moreover, as Barthes describes above (1975), narrative is extremely diverse and many contemporary narratives are deliberately constructed to deviate from exactly the conventions that theorists have sought to map.
The long version…
…is on my uni assignments page, here.
The Third Word :):- 