Book
Italian folktales in America: the verbal art of an immigrant woman
Wayne State University Press • Detroit • Published In 1988 • Pages: xxi, 322
By: Mathias, Elizabeth, Raspa, Richard, Todesco, Clementina.
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
This is a delightful collection of Italian folktales told by an Italian-American, Clementina Todesco, and recorded by her daughter in 1941. The authors interviewed Clementina in 1977 and recorded her life story. Included in her story is a wonderful account of the practice and setting of folktelling in her home village of Faller in northern Italy. In Faller, stories were told in the communal environment of the stable where families would repair after a hard day's work to cook meals, eat together, and socialize. Usually the storyteller was an elderly man who regaled his audience, day in and day out, sometimes taking days to finish a story. Some of these stories are recognizable to anyone familiar with the classic folktales recorded by the Brothers Grimm, although recombined here in their own variant form. The authors discuss the major themes of the folktales, especially that of the wicked stepmother.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Life history materials
- Verbal arts
- Texts translated into english
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Italian Americans
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2000
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- North America
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Regional, Ethnic and Diaspora Cultures
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- Book
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Ethnologist
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 4: Excellent Secondary Data
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- Ian Skoggard ; 1999
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- 1977
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 1903-1982
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- Faller, Italy and Detroit, Mich., United States
- NotesAdditional notes
- Elizabeth Mathias and Richard Raspa ; foreword by Roger D. Abrahams
- Includes 22 tales as told by Clementina Todesco
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 309-313) and indexes
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 85010659
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Italian Americans