Intertexuality

As a discipline, folkloristics is built on the principle of intertextuality. While contemporary folklorists respect each performance a folktale as a unique text, folklorists believe that critical consideration of that text must take into account not only other iterations of the same tale, but also various versions of related tales. The key reference works of folkloristics—the Aarne-Thompson classification system and Stith Thompson’s Motif-Index of Folk-Literature—are, essentially, attempts to map the terrain of folklore by identifying common elements and tracing them through multiple variants of thousands of tale types.

These works are amazing artifacts of the structuralist impulse, and they are invaluable tools for folkloristics. This is not, however, to say that they are easy to use. There are a number of reasons why this is the case, but one of them is the dumb physical labor or repeatedly flipping back and forth—referencing and cross-referencing—across several thick volumes of close type. I am, at the moment, involved in a research project that relies heavily on both the AT system and the motif index, and it has occurred to me—several times an hour—that this is one instance in which electronic text would be vastly superior to print text.

It has also occurred to me, as I have amassed information and tried to wrestle it into coherence, that my project itself would make so much more sense in hypertext than on paper. Electronic expression allows me to demonstrate how the intertextual approach to folklore works, rather than just describe it. It also makes it easy for the reader to take whatever avenue of exploration is most compelling, rather than follow my narrowly delimited argument—a feature that is especially appealing to me, since I don’t actually have an argument. My project is research of the purest kind: I’m not seeking evidence in support of a thesis; I am, rather, just travelling through the texts, looking for whatever I find.

So, here it is: my research project, one step at a time…