AHSS 2030 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Brothers Grimm, William Thoms, Romantic Nationalism
15 Jun 2018
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Department
Course
Professor
Day One (History of Folklore)
The Grimm Brothers (Wilhelm and Jakob)
• Kinder-und Hausmarchen
➢ hilde ad household tales
• 1812- Gis stoies oe out
• Where did brothers get stories of snow white, Cinderella, etc.
➢ They collected stories that were already in oral circulation
o They documented culture
o Whereas Shakespeare made up stories
➢ They were motivated to do this because
o They wanted to preserve stories
o Driven by romantic nationalism
▪ Patriotism to Germany
▪ atioal liteatue
▪ Teutonic mythology (Germanic mythology)
➢ They were looking for ancient stuff, obsessed with peasant culture as the
peasants were more tied to oral culture and such than city dwellers
William Thoms
• mid-nineteenth century England
• Studied popula atiuities
➢ Defined by anything old preserved among the peasantry
• Thos haged popula atiuities to folkloe i 1846 (oied the od ut had the
same meaning)
British Cultural Anthropologists
• Study of human culture
• Main spokesperson was E.B. Tylor
• Took Dais theo of iologial eolutio ad applied it to soial eolutio
➢ Explained that people/society go through stages of human development in
society
o Savage→barbarian→civilized
Ethnocentrism
• Belief that your culture is better than another
• Its a ad thig- this kind of attitude fuels wars, racism, islamophobia, etc.
Survivals
• Cultural leftovers
➢ Customs and practices left over from an earlier cultural phase
➢ Practices that are done, but the motive is unknown as the motive is lost from a
long time ago
o Ie. Throwing rice at weddings, why?
▪ Done because if you go back far enough, weddings were fertility
rituals. If it rained on wedding day it was good luck because it
eat oud hae lots of hilde. ‘ai=plats grow+ flowers+
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
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