Heroic Legends about Jangar and Gesar in the Kalmyk Fairy-Tale and Epic Traditions: the Problem of Transition of Folklore Texts Revisited
https://doi.org/10.22162/2500-1523-2017-11-120-131
Abstract
The article considers the essential aspects of plots inherent to legends that have the status of ‘transitional texts’ and are designated as patterns of Kalmyk heroic tales genetically related to the epics of Jangar and Gesar. The paper concludes that the living folklore tradition gave birth to transitional texts — heroic tale texts and epic legends that genetically developed from the epic tradition towards heroic tales. The genre of ‘latest heroic tales’ include compositions resulting from transformed epic tales that had lost their poetics and epic style of narration, including changes in contents, plots and motifs. The genre boundaries of such texts are conventional, since fairy tales may appear as a secondary — after the epic — form featured by fairy tale reinterpretation.
About the Author
Ts. Seleeva
Kalmyk Scitntific Center of the RAS (Elista, Russian Federation)
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Research Associate, Department of Mongolian Philology
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Review
For citations:
Seleeva Ts. Heroic Legends about Jangar and Gesar in the Kalmyk Fairy-Tale and Epic Traditions: the Problem of Transition of Folklore Texts Revisited. Mongolian Studies. 2017;9(2):120-131. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.22162/2500-1523-2017-11-120-131
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