From Formalism to Ideology: Toward a Creole Narrative Grammar

Folk narrative studies in the United States developed, through the search for “motifs” and “tale types,” to a formalism under the influence of Vladimir Propp. Then turning to descriptive ethnography, folklorists developed an attention to performance. Inevitably, the rise of public presentation led to questions of ideology and advocacy. A study of the ideological saturation of creole narratives raises the question whether the regularities whereby borrowed materials are remodeled might constitute a creole narrative grammar.