Dominican Republic / All works
Tale
Folk-lore from the Dominican Republic
Manuel José Andrade · 1930
Synopsis
More than three hundred tales collected in the summer of 1927 from peasants, shoeshine boys and domestic servants in the vicinity of Monte Cristy, San Pedro de Macorís, El Seibo and other places, noted down as they were dictated, with the pronunciation of rural speech. Most belong to well-known European types, such as the magic flight of Blanca Flor; to these are added the Juan Bobo cycle, joined by Bouqui and Lapin, stories of tricksters close to African traditions, tales from Haiti, then riddles and proverbs.
Context
The collector was sent to the island by the American Folk-Lore Society, on the recommendation of Franz Boas and with the support of Elsie Clews Parsons; in the north, the novelist Ramón Emilio Jiménez guided him. Finding the tales corrupted in the towns, he worked in the farms of the surrounding area, and at first had each tale recited aloud before taking it down from dictation, a method he owed to one of his informants, a young shoeshine boy. The book appeared in New York in 1930, printed in Germany; the University of Santo Domingo published an annotated Spanish version in 1948.
Who it is for
Short tales in Dominican Spanish, transcribed as close as possible to the pronunciation, slow to read: it helps to say them aloud.
Prizes and reception
Its Dominican publishers still saw in it, in 1947, the most abundant material ever methodically gathered on the folklore of the country.
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