For Wednesday 11 January: Ways of World-Making
Look at Kaljo Põllu graphic art and Lithuanian folk story “Egle, Queen of Serpents.”
(distributed in class) What holds these worlds together? What patterns can you discern
in the world-picture and ecosystem being depicted?
For Monday 16 January: Baltic Life Worlds and Mythological Worldings
Excerpt from Ants Viires, Old Estonian Folk Life, pp 9-23.
Writing Assignment: Your world-picture in narrative and art
For Wednesday 18 January: World Pictures and Pantheons
Vikis-Freibergs, Vaira.. “The Major Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Latvian Mythology.” LPLFS, 91-113. (course reader)
For Monday 23 January: The Archaeological Record and Finno-Ugric and Baltic Peoples
Gimbutas, Marija. The Balts. New York: Praeger, 1963. pp. 11-54, 109-140, 179-204.
Sproul, Barbara C. “Introduction,” Primal Myths: Creating the World. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1979. pp. 1-31
For Wednesday 25 January
Vikis-Freibergs, Vaira. “Oral Tradition as Cultural History,” in Linguistics and Poetics of Latvian Folk Songs. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, pp. 3-14.
NB! Articles from this collection will hereafter carry the abbreviation LPLFS.
For Monday 30 January: Introduction to Estonian Folk Songs and Latvian Dainas
Kurrik, Juhan, Ilomaile: Estonian Folk Songs, Studia Estonica Fennica Baltica, Vol III
Maarjamaa Press, 1985: Read first three clusters of folksongs: pp. 7-28, 48-57
108-157.
For Wednesday 1 February: The Folk Song as Text and Process
No reading assignment: review Monday`s reading with a view to analyzing one song with respect to point of view, shifts of meaning, resolution of a predicament. (Who is
speaking, by whom and how is wisdom carried? What might be the context
of the performance of this song?)
For Monday 6 February: The Folk Song, Relationships, and Gender
Kurrik, Juhan. Ilomaile: Estonian Folk Songs. Studia Estonica Fennica Baltica, Vol III,
Maarjamaa Press, 1985. pp. 193-217, (Loveleaf, Beauty’s Song) 226-229 (Maiden`s Field), 236-241 (“What Man From the Sea”), 274-288 (Sold Girl, Ransomed Girl),
Vikis-Freiberga, Vaira. “’The Poppy Blossom from my Native Land”: The Married Woman as Exile in Latvian Folk Poetry.”
In Imagined States: Nationalism, Utopia, and Longing in Oral Cultures. Ed. Luisa Del Giudice and Gerald Porter.
Logan: Utah State UP, 2001. 193-214. (review this article, initially assigned last week)
For Wednesday 8 February: Calendrical Songs
Muizniece, Lalita. “The Poetic ‘I’ in Latvian Folk Songs,” LPLFS 136-148.
Ruke-Dravina, Velta. “ The Apple Tree in Latvian Folk Songs.” LPLFS, 169-186.
For Monday 13 February
Vikis-Freiberga, Vaira. “Text Variants in the Latvian Folk Song Corpus: Theoretical and Practical Problems. LPLFS, 49-73.
Jaremko, Christina I. “Baltic Ballads of the ‘Singing Bone’: Prototype or Oicotype?” LPLFS, 273-285.
Short reflection paper (weekly assignment) due. Topic TBA
For Wednesday 15 February: The Folk Tale
Hiiemäe, Mall. “Tales of Uude of Hulja.” Folklore, Vol 13 (2000) Folk Belief and Media Group of the Estonian Literary Museum, pp. 7-36.
Maas, Selve. The Moon Painters and Other Estonian Folk Tales. New York: The Viking Press, 1971: “The Birth of the River Emajõgi,” “Tall Peter and Short Peter,” “The Rehepapp and Vanapagan,” “The Magic Mirror,” “The Goldspinners.
Velius, Norbertas. Lithuanian Etiological Tales and Legends. Vilnius, 1998. 15-38, 55-73, 85-95.
Jaago, Tiiu. “Jakob Hurt: The Birth of Estonian-Language Folklore Research,” Studies in Estonian Folkloristics and Ethnology: A Reader and Reflexive History.” Ed Kristin Kuutma and Tiiu Jaago. Tartu University Press, 2005 pp 45-65.
----------. “Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald and the Cultural Bridge.” SEFE, 16-36.
Västrik, Ergo-Hart. “Oskar Loorits: Byzantine Cultural Relations and Practical Applications of Folklore Archives.” SEFE, 204-215.
Carpenter, Inta Gale. A Latvian Storyteller: The Repertoire of Janis Plavnieks. Arno Press, 1980. pp. 17-62.
Eckert, Rainer. “Ancient Bee-Keeping Terminology in Kr. Barons’ Collection Latvju Dainas.” LPLFS, 148-157.
Gimbutas, Marija. The Balts. New York: Praeger, 1963. pp. 11-54, 109-140, 179-204.
Hiiemäe, Mall. “Tales of Uude of Hulja.” Folklore, Vol 13 (2000) Folk Belief and Media Group of the Estonian Literary Museum, pp. 7-36.
Jaremko, Christina I. “Baltic Ballads of the ‘Singing Bone’: Prototype or Oicotype?” LPLFS, 273-285.
Järv, Risto. “Old Stories in Contemporary Times—A Collecting Experience in the Orava Village in Siberia.” Folklore Vol 13 (2000) 37-65.
Lord, Albert. “Theories of Oral Literature and the Latvian Dainas.” LPLFS 35-49.
Mikkor, Marika. “On the Customs Related to Death in the Erza Villages of Sabajevo and Povodimovo,” Folklore Vol 12 (1999) 88-126.
Muizniece, Lalita. “The Poetic ‘I’ in Latvian Folk Songs,” LPLFS 136-148.
Ruke-Dravina, Velta. “ The Apple Tree in Latvian Folk Songs.” LPLFS, 169-186.
Sproul, Barbara C. “Introduction,” Primal Myths: Creating the World. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1979. pp. 1-31.
Viires, Ants. “Pseudomythology in Estonian Publicity in the 19th and 20th Century,” Ethnologia Europaea 21(1991), pp. 135-143.
Vikis-Freibergs, Vaira. “Oral Tradition as Cultural History,” in Linguistics and Poetics of Latvian Folk Songs. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, pp. 3-14.
NB! Articles from this collection will hereafter carry the abbreviation LPLFS.
---------. “The Major Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Latvian Mythology.” LPLFS, 91-113.
---------. “Text Variants in the Latvian Folk Song Corpus: Theoretical and Practical Problems. LPLFS, 49-73.
--------. “’The Poppy Blosson from my Native Land”: The Married Woman as Exile in Latvian Folk Poetry.” In Imagined States: Nationalism, Utopia, and Longing in Oral Cultures. Ed. Luisa Del Giudice and Gerald Porter. Logan: Utah State UP, 2001. 193-214.
Carpenter, Inta Gale. A Latvian Storyteller, pp. 175-227.
Kreutzwald, Friedrich Reinhold. Kalevipoeg: An Ancient Estonian Tale. Translated by Juri Kurman. Moorestown,NJ: Symposia Press, 1982) Tales 1,2,6,11,20.
Kurrik, Juhan. Ilomaile: Estonian Folk Songs. Studia Estonica Fennica Baltica, Vol III, Maarjamaa Press, 1985. pp. 7-28, 48-57, 108-157, 178-197, 212-229, 236-241, 266-292, 338-339.
Lonnrot, Elias. The Kalevala. Transl. Francis Peabody Magoun. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1963. Runos 1-3, 11-13, 18-21, 42, 47-49.
Maas, Selve. The Moon Painters and Other Estonian Folk Tales. New York: The Viking Press, 1971: “The Birth of the River Emajõgi,” “Tall Peter and Short Peter,” “The Rehepapp and Vanapagan,” “The Magic Mirror,” “The Goldspinners.”
Päär, Piret and Anne Türnpu. Estonian Folktales: The Heavenly Wedding. Tallinn: Varrak, 2005. pp. 20-35, 49-69, 101-116.
Põllu, Kalju and Jaan Kaplinski. Kalivägi ( Series of Prints and Poetic Interpretations).
Velius, Norbertas. Lithuanian Mythological Tales. Vilnius, 1998. pp. 19-38, 54-60, 143-182, 227-239.
---------------------. Lithuanian Etiological Tales and Legends. Vilnius, 1998. 15-38, 55-73, 85-95.