The Forms of Traditional Literature

27th July 2010 (Tuesday)

Where does literature come from? Today’s lecture revolved around this topic.

Basically, traditional literature is a genre which includes poems, songs, riddles, etc, that have been passed down orally from one generation to another generation. Thus, the sources are usually unknown, so are the authors. The forms of traditional literature can be categorized into three, i.e. religious/cultural literature, folklore and folktales. However some do overlap.

Throughout the lesson, the two categories – folklore and folktale are rather confusing in their grouping. Folklore is considered the largest category of traditional literature, which includes folktales as one of the types of literature that are categorized under folklore. However, folktales can also be grouped as one of the three forms of traditional literature. In fact, folktales is the major form of traditional literature. Folktales consist of fairy tales, noodlehead stories, animal stories, trickster tales, cumulative tales and pourquoi tales. However, some of the new terms are unfamiliar to me.

All in all, there are many forms of traditional literature. Although some are lost with time, the remainder must not be neglected but treasured, as it reflects the history of literature that we are having today.