Metamorphosis: The Dynamics of Symbolism in European Fairy Tales

ISBN-13: 9780820458083 / Angielski / Miękka / 2002 / 280 str.

Opis

Folklorists have become renowned for concentrating on aspects of form and classification to the detriment of content and meaning. Metamorphosis: The Dynamics of Symbolism in European Fairy Tales seeks to reverse this tendency in showing, through an examination of the folkloric data, that European fairy tales involve complex symbolism. This book seeks to explain in reference to the notion of metamorphosis the puzzling contradictory attributes of fairy-tale figures that have discouraged the study of meanings in this field and proposes that the workings of metamorphosis in fairy tales reveal a pervasive cyclic ontology that underlies mythology and ritual. The issue of universal symbolism is again examined divested from any -archetypal- generalizations as a subject of worthy reflection."

O autorze

The Author: Francisco Vaz da Silva is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Folklore at ISCTE Instituto Superior das Ciências do Trabalho e da Empressa, University of Lisbon, where he also received his Ph.D. in Symbolic Anthropology. He has published numerous articles in professional journals in Europe and America.