Aarne-Thompson classification system

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The Aarne-Thompson classification system is a system for classifying folktales.

Background

Antti Aarne was the student of Julius Krohn and his son Kaarle Krohn. He further developed their historic-geographic method of comparative folkloristics, and developed the initial version of what became the Aarne-Thompson classification system of classifying folktales, first published in 1910. The American folklorist Stith Thompson, in translating Aarne's motif-based classification system in 1928, enlarged its scope, and with his second addition to Aarne's catalogue in 1961 created the AT-number system (also referred to as AaTh system) often used today. The AT classification system has recently (2004) been expanded by Hans-Jörg Uther to the Aarne-Thompson-Uther or ATU system.

The Aarne-Thompson system catalogues some 2500 basic plots from which, for countless generations, European and Near Eastern storytellers have built their tales. As Europeans and Near-Easterners travelled to the New World, the Far East, Africa, and other distant places, their tales migrated as well, often flourishing in their new environments. Hence, the Aarne-Thompson system encompasses tales found around the world.
—Ashliman, p. ix

The classification was criticized by Vladimir Propp of the Formalist school of the 1920s, for ignoring the functions of the motifs by which they are classified. Furthermore, the "macro-level" analysis means that the stories that repeat motifs may not be classified together, while stories with wide divergences may be, because the classification must select some features as salient.

See also

• Morphology (folkloristics)

References

• Antti Aarne, The Types of the Folktale: A Classification and Bibliography, The Finnish Academy of Science and Letters, Helsinki, 1961. ISBN 951-41-0132-4
• Ashliman, D. L., A Guide to Folktales in the English Language Greenwood Press, 1987.
• Uther, Hans-Jörg 2004. The Types of International Folktales : A Classification and Bibliography, Parts I-III: the ATU classification system

External links

• Folktale Types - an explanation of the AT-number system.
• D. L. Ashliman, "Folklore and Mythology Electronic Texts"
• Structural Analysis of Variants of Tale Type 361: an example of the Aarne-Thompson analytic method
• Reflections on International Narrative Research on the Example of the Tale of the three Oranges (AT 408)
• Classifying folktales - The Third Revision of the Aarne-Thompson Tale Type Index
• A search tool for ATU numbers geographic distribution

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