Myths and Legends from Korea: An Annotated Compendium of Ancient and Modern Materials (review)

This book is proof positive that someone has invented a time machine—one that sends people from the past into the future. James Grayson, the author of this book, has been living in a time warp and is approximately fifty years late.

Grayson has collected 177 tales "from the oral literature of the ancient and modern periods, serving to illustrate the continuity and differences in Korean cultural tradition over a thousand years or more" (p. xv) and included another sixteen tales from China and Japan for comparative purposes. The author states:

This work differs from a certain form of folklore research in that it is not concerned with traditional typological comparisons, but with an analysis of the function of the tales, the purpose which these tales had for the listeners. This functional analysis follows a more traditional anthropological approach to the analysis of oral literature. This approach to the study of the content of the folktales is complemented by a form of folktale analysis I call 'dramatic structural analysis,' in which the narrative format of the tale is seen to be like the structure of a drama or play (p. xv).

In his introduction Grayson informs us that he has found the use of tale types and motifs, citing the work of Stith Thompson, to be problematic. His discussion of the limitations of these concepts displays a complete lack of knowledge or understanding of the scholarship over the last fifty years dealing with this topic. We are next informed that his approach to these tales will depend almost exclusively on William Bascom's 1954 article, "The Four Functions of Folklore" (JAF 67:333-49), while also citing Linda Degh's 1957 article, "Some Questions of the Social Function of Storytelling" (Acta Ethnographica 6:97-146). While these are both fine articles, Grayson's knowledge of functionalist studies is forty years out of date.

Grayson's knowledge of the various ways and reasons for compiling collections of folk narratives, whether the collections were made one thousand years ago or today, is also problematic. For example, he states:

I have taken the view that even though these stories now only exist in a written form which is itself quite ancient, and in spite of the layers of redaction found in many of these tales, recorded narratives from the ancient period of Korean history came neither from the hand of a writer nor from the hand of a compiler of tales, but were the result of the anonymous oral transmission of the tale from the distant past. This is a view which obviously cannot be proven from documentary evidence, but I take it to be a self-evident point (p. 10).

We are getting dangerously close to a romanticized view of the folk and their tales and are left wondering why it is "self-evident."

The narratives in this book are divided into three chapters: "Foundation Myths," "Legends and Tales from the Ancient Period," and "Folktales from the Modern Period." Each tale is followed by notes, source, parallel motifs, and Grayson's commentary. It is in the latter section that the purpose (function) of each tale is outlined. Grayson again seems unaware of the plethora of studies that deal with the multifarious ways of interpreting narratives and the difficulties of interpreting texts from a distant period and culture. Invariably his analysis attributes one function to each tale.

Readers interested in this subject will want to consult the standard translations of the major texts cited. These are listed in the bibliography.