Contents of
Vol. 16, No. 1 (2002)

Editorial Policy

Guidelines for Submissions

From the Editor

ARTICLES

The Bushman Trickster: Protagonist, Divinity, and Agent of Creativity

Mathias Guenther

In focusing on the trickster's ontological and moral ambiguity, we draw attention to this mythological being's status as the "ultimate marginal man" and as the "spirit of disorder and enemy of boundaries." As a liminal being who confounds every category and all conceptual boundaries, and who shuttles the borders between the mythological past and the here-and-now, the trickster becomes a being of all possibilities and an agent of creativity. His errand wanderings frequently take him to the world of humans, whose antic ways he reacts to with bemusement and with an irrepressible urge to stir up things. The trickster reminds us of the "infinite possibilities of the outside," and the relativity, as well as the finiteness and specious fragility, of the order we impose on our world. The world dealt with here is that of the Bushmen, a hunter-gatherer people of southern Africa, in whose folklore and religion the trickster looms large. I will profile this figure and draw parallels to trickster figures in other parts of the world.

A Masochism Promising Supreme Conquests: Simone de Beauvoir's Reflections on Fairy Tales and Children's Literature

Christine Shojaei Kawan

In The Second Sex (Le deuxième sexe, 1949), Simone de Beauvoir analyzed one of society's basic myths, which she calls, with reference to Goethe, the myth of the eternal feminine. According to Beauvoir, it is through myths that patriarchal society "imposed its laws and manners upon individuals in a picturesque and sensitive way." Among the many carriers of myth she evokes tales, or more exactly, children's literature and popular narratives. The Second Sex as well as Beauvoir's childhood memories (Mémoires d'une jeune fille rangée, 1958) are not only a useful source of information about reading material for girls in the early twentieth century, especially in a Catholic middle-class milieu in France; they also provide insights regarding the effects of such literature. Beauvoir's recollections deomstrate that educatory tales can be reinterpreted by the addressees in various ways, that they can be rejected, and that they may even carry hidden messages that foster vice rather than virtues. In The Second Sex, Beauvoir made use of these childhood reading experiences, particularly in her discussion of the socializing effects of popular tales on young girls and women, anticipating the criticism of feminist folklorists by about twenty years.

SCHOLARSHIP IN TRANSLATION

The Deconstruction of the Male-Rescuer Archetype in Contemporary Feminist Revisions of "The Sleeping Beauty"

Carolina Fernández Rodríguez

In the second half of the twentieth century the nature and function of the traditional fairy-tale rescuer have shifted dramatically. This paper analyzes the changes the rescuer has undergone in recent times by focusing on the story of "The Sleeping Beauty" and comparing its most famous versions--that is those of Basile, Perrault, and the Brothers Grimm--to some of the feminist revisions that have been written in the last decades, both in English and in Spanish. The former group of texts are responsible for the inscription of the male-rescuer archetype, that is, for conveying the idea that the redeemer is naturally a man. In contrtast, feminist revisions attempt, on the one hand, to demythologize the traditional hero, and, on the other, to offer different alternatives to it.

TEXTS & TRANSLATIONS

The Bird of Truth

Cecelia Böhl de Faber / translated by Robert M. Fedorchek

Cecilia Böhl de Faber was a nineteenth-century novelist, short story writer, and folkorist who immersed herself in the oral tradition of southern Spain. "The Bird of Truth" is a translation of one of the tales she collected in Cuentos de encantamiento (Stories of Enchantment, 1877). The tale has its counterparts in other European traditons and is offered here as an example of Böhl de Faber's contribution to the Spanish fairy-tale.

The Magic Lamp

Rafik Schami / translated by Alfred L. Cobbs

Syrian-born Rafik Schami is an award-winning author whose fiction draws on his experience as an ethnic minority in Germany. His fairy tales and other fantastic stories often combine elements of the traditional European fairy tale with realistic elements from the Arab tradition of storytelling in order to deal critically and satirically with the problems faced by ethnic minorities in Germany. "The Magic Lamp" is a translation of his story "Die Wunderlampe" (1985).

Overhearing Human and Animal Languages

Lee Haring and Dawood Auleear

In May 1990 in the Southwest Indian Ocean island of Mauritius, we recorded a two-person performance of the tale The Animal Languages (AT 670) in the Bhojpuri language, which is spoken by about one-quarter of the Mauritian population. We present an English translation of most of the performance, with brief comments. It shows a friendly rivalry between two performers, who also give information about occasions for storytelling in their village past.

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