Excerpt from "Storytelling"
A robust and vital storytelling tradition is part and parcel of the South's persona. "A storied region," folklorist Benjamin A. Botkin aptly called the South. Indeed, southern narrators boast extensive repertoires of folktales, legends, jests, and anecdotes. Attracted by the lure of this trove, early folklore collectors flocked to isolated pockets of the Appalachians, Ozarks, and bayous to find centuries-old tales of international circulation. But the romantic draw of pristine backsections aside, storytelling holds social significance throughout the South.
Verbal artistry dramatizes and gives meaning to mores, locales, and events. Even though communities acknowledge a particularly adept storyteller, each person knows narratives that he or she can occasionally relate. Nonetheless, of significance to many communities is how people cherish the styles and stories of that yarnspinner. They easily remember those particular settings for the good story-the store, the courthouse, and the city street.
Despite the misleading homey image of southern storytelling as a quaint form of peripheral entertainment, narration continues to touch on central social roles in modern settings. The tale teaches values, develops communicative skills, binds people together, and imbues life with art. Storytelling can be described in terms of the narrator and the content, social context, and style of the expression.
Simon J. Bronner
Pennsylvania State University
From ENCYCLOPEDIA OF SOUTHERN CULTURE, edited by William Ferris and Charles Reagan Wilson. Copyright 1989 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher.
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