European Storytelling: From Myth to Marvel

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

An introduction to the tradition of European storytelling, encompassing myths, fairytales and medieval legends; and how these traditional stories live on in fantasy, movies, role playing and other modern uses of storytelling. As well as introducing the stories in their historical context, the course will explore various theoretical approaches to them. Course Content This course, taught at the upper-division level, is an introduction to European oral tradition, as expressed in European myth-cycles, legends and fairytales, from the earliest known sources up to and including modern uses of this tradition. After a brief introduction to the field, we will start with discussing fairy tales and folk tales. The reason for beginning with the fairy tales is that this allows us to introduce some of the main methods and theories for working with oral narratives, which will be relevant throughout the course. This encompasses the folkloristic methods and theories of Axel Olrik, Alan Dundes and Vladimir Propp. We will continue with introductions to the main mythologies of Europe: Greek, Nordic and Celtic. Parallel with the presentation of these mythological traditions, some of the major theoretical approaches will be introduced, such as the psychology of C.G. Jung and the Hero Pattern theories of Joseph Campbell, Otto Rank and Lord Raglan. The purpose for this is to present these theories early on in the course, so that we may be able to apply them to the material presented in the rest of the course. Therefore the beginning of the course will be weighted towards introducing theories, but in the second half of the course there will be an increased emphasis on introducing the story material itself, as well as its historical context. We will continue with the great heroic legend cycles of the medieval age: King Arthur, the Nibelungenlied and the Volsung-cycle. Finally, the course will move on to modern uses of traditional storytelling and how traditional stories live on in modern culture in the form of fantasy literature, movies, role-playing and computer games.