What+is+traditional+literature?

What is traditional literature?
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Tarah de Patino

What is Traditional Literature?

Traditional literature has ancient beginnings. People since the earliest times have striven to understand their world and their place in it. To explain the questions that they didn’t have answers to, stories were created to try to answer these questions. Without scientific knowledge, there could be many possible explanations for such wonders as the sun and the stars or the reasons why people can talk and animals cannot. We don’t know who the original authors of these stories were because these stories have been passed on from generation to generation for thousands of years and because they come from every different culture in the world. There are many different types of traditional literature; they include folktales, fables, myths, and epics and legends. Folktales can be set in any time or place and can include the adventures of people or animals, and often times include the themes of justice, quests, or magic. They are the stories that every child grows up hearing, such as //Little Red Riding Hood// and //The Three Little Pigs//. Folktales are often simple, in a time period of the past and with a conflict that gets solved by the end of the story. Often the theme is of a moral nature, where kindness and hard work conquer the problems, justice prevails, or good wins over evil. A fable is a short, moral tale that usually has talking animals with human-like traits that teach us lessons about living life and getting along with the others around us. Children generally love stories about animals who can talk, though they don’t always understand the moral lessons until they are older. Fables are found throughout the world, though some believe they were first created by a Greek slave named Aesop, who lived in the 6th century B.C. Myths are stories that try to answer the questions of the creation of the earth and humankind, and try to explain natural phenomena. Myths were first created by the Greeks and then adopted by the Romans and contain gods, goddesses and magical creatures and sometimes take place in other worlds. Myths often contain action and suspense and deal with the relationships between people and the gods. There are myths that were developed by other groups of people throughout the world and they also usually deal with the creation of the earth and life and the settings in which the people live. Epics and legends are closely related to myths in that they tell the deeds of strong beings, in this case human heroes rather than gods. Many of the heroes are good and often overcome evil. //Beowulf, King Arthur// and //Robin Hood// are all examples of epics and legends because they tell of the good deeds of humans and come from a time and setting that we can recognize. All of traditional literature appeals to children because it is imaginative, can be humorous or magical and may have talking animals. It also helps children understand their world better as they learn about different cultures and ideas.

Donna E. Norton. //Through the Eyes of a Child: An Introduction to Children’s Literature//. Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. Merrill Publishing Company, 1983. Morgan, Mia. "Traditional Literature." Salem State College Powerpoint presentation. Fall 2009.