Folklore
Definition: since the mid-nineteenth century, has been the collective name applied to sayings, verbal compositions, and social rituals that have been handed down solely, or at least primarily, by word of mouth and example rather than in written form. Folklore developed, and continues even now, in communities where few if any people can read or write. It also continues to flourish among literate populations, in the form of oral jokes, stories, and varieties of wordplay;
Definition: since the mid-nineteenth century, has been the collective name applied to sayings, verbal compositions, and social rituals that have been handed down solely, or at least primarily, by word of mouth and example rather than in written form. Folklore developed, and continues even now, in communities where few if any people can read or write. It also continues to flourish among literate populations, in the form of oral jokes, stories, and varieties of wordplay;
for example, the collection of "urban folklore" by Alan Dundes and Carl R. Pagter, When You're up to Your Ass in Alligators: More Urban Folklore from the Paperwork Empire (1987). Folklore includes legends, superstitions, songs, tales, proverbs, riddles, spells, and nursery rhymes; pseudo- scientific lore about the weather, plants, and animals; customary activities at births, marriages, and deaths; and traditional dances and forms of drama which are performed on holidays or at communal gatherings. Elements of folklore have at all times entered into sophisticated written literature.
For example, the choice among the three caskets in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice (II. ix.) and the superstition about a maiden's dream which is central to Keats' Eve of St Agnes (1820) are both derived from folklore. Refer to A. H. Krappe, Science of Folklore (1930, reprinted 1974); Richard M. Dorson, ed. Folklore and Folklife: An Introduction (1972).
