Three Variants of the Historic-Geographical Method
Anderson, Rooth and Lövkrona claim to use the Finnish or the historic-geographical method. Anderson and his followers build up their studies in a similar manner. They take their readers more or less directly in medias res. Rooth arranges her dissertation differently discussing her ends and means in more detail. Anderson does not find it necessary to describe his method, whereas such a presupposition is missing in Lövkrona's book. She provides a thorough account of her version of the method, which is a combination of Anderson-Krohn’s and Kuusi’s models. Rooth and Lövkrona defend their methods as if they were not widely accepted. Rooth and Lövkrona also clearly state the aim of their studies; such statements are omitted by Anderson.
The material in all three studies consists of prose narratives. Anderson and Lövkrona have studied legends, Rooth a Märchen. For Anderson and Rooth the need for a world-wide gathering of material is obvious, for Lövkrona, the Nordic recordings are central.
Terminological problems are debated to some extent. However, a strict definition of a motif is missing, even though this concept lies at the core of all comparisons. Presumably, there was a commonly accepted definition of the issue. Rooth, on the other hand, pays the concept some attention. Previous research is handled in all three studies: Anderson provides 23 lines, Rooth a little more, Lövkrona some four pages. Anderson does not argue with any other student of folklore, whereas Rooth and Lövkrona take part in an ongoing debate fairly actively.
Anderson presents extremely detailed lists of motifs in long catalogues. Rooth, on the other hand, presents her tale types in a more reasoning manner. Lövkrona does not appreciate the catalogue as a means of displaying her findings. She concentrates on the redaction analysis. Lövkrona regards comparison as a means of shedding light upon structure, function and the meaning of the tale and not as a result in itself. Thus the comparative method has changed during these years from being a way of describing a tradition to being a vehicle for asking subsequent questions about the life of the tradition.
Anderson and Lövkrona concentrate a huge amount of information into tables and lists and partly into maps as well. Rooth describes her findings in a fluent text. But whereas Anderson and Rooth describe how the tale and legend are put together in different times and places, Lövkrona discusses tradition. All three scholars also seek some kind of origin and they are, to some extent, able to state where and when their legends originated.
Each of the three scholars have their special areas of interest, Anderson on the problem of self-correction, Rooth on the connection between folklore and ethnology-anthropology and Lövkrona on how to widen and improve the classical historic-geographical method. For all of them, comparison is crucial; they all roughly follow Krohn's recommendations. It seems, however, that the method has developed in two directions: a more restricted and a more liberal form. For instance, Lövkrona restricts her study of the geographical distribution of tradition to northern Europe, but she is more liberal in finding new factors for comparison, such as structural elements and redactions. Although the historic-geographical method had fallen into disrepute, according to, among others, Rooth and Lövkrona, we should not expect very many studies conducted according to this method any longer. Nevertheless, they are still published, roughly in accordance with Krohn's scheme.
Folklore Comparison Reviewed
I have demonstrated that comparison has been used for different purposes in different times. There have been scholars like Rancken and his fellow students at the end of the last century who wanted to compare for political reasons, to draw a line between "us" and "them" or to show that "we" strictly speaking belong to "them" and not to "those". This was partly repeated during the Fascist period and is familiar for modern identity studies. There have also been scholars who looked upon folklore as a set of survivals impossible to understand without comparison to parallel phenomena. In this case, a universalistic comparison such as that advocated by Andrew Lang was accepted. This kind of study is still conducted today.
Comparison was the most significant method of conducting folklore research within the historic-geographical school. The aim of comparison was to trace the origin and genesis of folklore phenomena according to the general view of humanistic studies as historical studies, with folklore representing the remains of a lost golden age of culture. This school, however, differs from the universal and all-embracing comparison for various reasons. In order to conduct comparative research, it is necessary to define comparative concepts that are so well-determined that they make a comparison between different cultural phenomena possible. The comparative concepts are, in fact, the criteria for comparison; they must be observable criteria suitable for empirical investigations which are built on the assumption of compatibility. They must have a mutual intension. Thus, definitions of folklore items are needed. Without them it is not possible to state whether two folklore phenomena have so much in common that a comparison is even possible from a common perspective. In the studies investigated here, Julius Krohn was aware of these problems, when he realised that the texts for comparison had to fulfill certain conditions. Kaarle Krohn discussed these problems implicitly when he problematised the relation between different genres, asked what a motif was, tried to stick to empirically determinable factors for comparison or reflected on phenomena that seemed superficially alike. But only those folklorists who advocated the historic-geographical method reflected upon the process of comparison.
Recently, Christine Goldberg has made a new effort to escape the limits posed by the classical historic-geographical method. In her study of the tale of the three oranges from 1997 (AT 408), she remains faithful to the method. She states that it is "the only way to give definition to a tale", that is, to demonstrate the uniqueness and the boundaries of each individual tale. Nevertheless, she is critical of the method. She abandons the central aims of the classical method, i.e., to find the primordial place, time and form and the distribution of a tale. She clearly realises that philological studies of the history of language inspired the scholars who originally designed the method. However, folklore studies require a variety of approaches. According to her, the first folklore students concentrated too much upon distribution and origin. For her, it is crucial to understand the mechanism that makes a tale hold together for centuries. Therefore, she says, it would be better to ask questions concerning stability and variation, because the method is particularly suited for the study of form. Thus, according to Goldberg, the historic-geographical method is useful, especially for the investigation of details, similarities and differences.
Consequently, Goldberg uses the idea of comparison in conducting her research, but her goal is not to find the primordial factors mentioned above. Instead, she addresses the issues concerning the boundaries of a tale. She asks "how far actual texts can differ from the tale type and still be part of it, and how close they can seem to the tale type without belonging to it" (ibid.: 62). Her main problem concerns the factors that hold a tale together. Her method consists of the comparison of repeated images and themes found in the variants of the tale of the three oranges.
Christine Goldberg is a faithful, but not an uncritical, admirer of the historic-geographical method. She maintains the comparative grasp, but subverts the whole idea of the Anderson-Krohn method. She refuses to ask questions concerning primordial place, time and form, and concerning distribution. Instead, she uses the comparative method for discovering the meaning of the tale and to reveal the factors that have held the tale together. Consequently, she does not end up with a place or date of origin, but with a statement that explains the tale’s form as a result of the harmony of the themes, motifs and images found in it. "Tales, including AT 408, are elastic", Goldberg maintains. "They can be altered in many ways to suit many tastes. To some extent these tastes are shared by members of one or another region or culture; to some extent they are idiosyncratic" (ibid.: 238). The distance from Anderson and Krohn is so great that it is difficult to recognise the classical method of folklore in Goldberg’s research. However, she opens up different points of view when she mentions that problems of variation and stability should be solved. These items are, as a matter of fact, central in folklore studies which are grounded on folklore performance and which aim to explain the meaning and function of variation, variation being a concept filled with connotations of comparison.
To conclude, the process of comparing, despite its crucial role in folklore studies, was not and has not become the subject of general theoretical interest amongst folklore students. An exception to this general rule is Lauri Honko’s article "Types of Comparison and Forms of Variation". In this article, the author tries to summarise the kinds of criticism the historic-geographical method has received and delineates one category of "opponents", including scholars such as Carl Wilhelm von Sydow, and another group of "proponents", who try to develop the old method into a model more suitable for recent practice within folklore studies. Among these "proponents", Honko lists Jan-Öjvind Swahn, whom I have not addressed here, but in a forthcoming paper, and Matti Kuusi.
However, these efforts are not enough, according to Honko. He looks for a general theory of comparison within folklore studies, and outlines a model consisting of three types of comparison which would, consequently, lead to three types of meaning.
The tradition-historical dimension "reigned supreme and was the only form of comparison recognised by the traditional ‘Finnish’ method" (ibid.: 120). Among other things, Honko blames it for being neither satisfactory nor sufficient, because the scholars did not problematise the process of cultural loans well enough to make this kind of comparison meaningful.
Honko also refers to comparison from the perspective of traditional phenomenology. However, to develop his idea on a general theory of comparison, Honko finds it necessary to problematise the concept of phenomenon. Honko maintains that this concept and the individual traits and limits of every phenomenon depend on "some kind of scholarly agreement". Consequently, the definitions are merely temporary. Moreover, when searching for the meaning of phenomena, the folklore student should be aware that they "have been lifted from their natural context and placed side by side with similar manifestations derived from entirely different milieus and contexts" (ibid.: 114).
Honko’s third type of comparison is the tradition-ecological perspective. Here the material is limited to a specific geographical area with either a macro or a micro ecological aspect. Here it is important to realise how a tradition has adapted to a specific environment. The variation thus achieved is no longer structural, but systemic. This means that it is realised not only by the scholar comparing on a structural level, but also by the individuals who tell the stories or sing the songs. >From this comparative perspective, it is possible to study not only the variants, but also the variation and different meanings that different variants have according to the circumstances of performance.
Dette er en kortversion av en lang artikkel som inngår i boken Thick Corpus, resultatet efter Folklore Fellows' Summer School 1999. I den finnes noter og referanser.
http://www.hanko.uio.no/planses/Ulrika.html