[ **up: [[Literature]]** ] --- # Folk literature [[2025-0322. Folk literature 'refers to popular literature, mass literature, and literary works rooted in folk society.'|Folk literature 'refers to popular literature, mass literature, and literary works rooted in folk society.']][^1] --- ## Features of folk literature ### Popular The point of folk literature is that it is *popular*. It is [[2025-0322. The point of folk literature is that it is popular.|’born in the folk, created by the folk, and exists for the folk’]].[^2] [[2025-0322. 'They are the stories the common people like, and most of the common people place their emotions on them.'|'They are the stories the common people like, and most of the common people place their emotions on them.']][^3] --- ### Collective [[2025-0322. Folk literature is collective.|'The second feature of “folk literature” is collective. It is the collective works with no actual authors. We don’t know its authors. They are transmitted from this person to that person and from one place to another place.']][^4] --- ### Spoken (and shared) [[2025-0322. Folk literature is oral.|'The third feature of “folk literature” is oral. They are transmitted from this person to another person through the mouth and are never written down. Thus, they are diffluent and can be revised and changed at any time. When they are written down finally, they become fixed and can be imitated.']][^5] --- ### Unpolished (and fresh) [[2025-0322. Folk literature is unpolished (and vulgar).|'The fourth feature of “folk literature” is fresh and vulgar. They are not touched by the hands of scholars and literati; thus, they still keep their fresh colors. And also because of this very reason, they are something unpolished, something quite vulgar and coarse. In some places, they are written profoundly, while in other places quite roughly and even unsightly.']][^6] --- ### Richly imaginative [[2025-0322. Folk literature is imaginative.|'The fifth feature of “folk literature” is its untrammeled imagination, and the general orthodox literature cannot reach this point.']][^7] #### But sometimes deeply attached to common mores [[2025-0322. Folk literature is imaginative.|’However, it also has various disadvantages, and many of the folk habits and traditions are always adhered to it firmly and cannot be washed away and scraped off. Therefore, sometimes it is more feudal than orthodox literature and expresses more of the conservation of the mass.’]][^8] --- ### Early adopter of shiny new things [[2025-0322. Folk literature is courageous.|'The sixth feature of “folk literature” is its courage to introduce new things. All foreign songs and melodies, all foreign matters, all foreign styles, and all foreign styles not seen in the eyes of orthodox scholars and literati are always adopted and received by the folk authors at the earliest.']][^9] --- ## The gentrification of storytelling [[2025-0322. The gentrification of storytelling.|’When a new style comes out in the folk, scholars and literati usually ignore and despise it completely at the very beginning. But gradually, some brave scholars and literati adopt this fresh and novel style as the form of their own creation, and it is gradually supported by most of the scholars and literati. Step by step, this new style is upgraded and becomes the thing of the royal aristocrats. With this, it gradually goes far away from the folk and becomes the style of orthodox literature.’]][^10] [[2025-0322. The gentrification of storytelling.|’When their folk voices gradually disappear, folk songs become the things of scholars and literati.’]][^11] --- ## Folk literature – China - [[Literature--Folk, Chinese]] [^1]: Zheng Zhenduo, *[[Zheng. 'History of Chinese Folk Literature', 2024.|History of Chinese Folk Literature]]* (Singapore: Springer Singapore, 2021), Chapter 1. [^2]: Zheng Zhenduo, *[[Zheng. 'History of Chinese Folk Literature', 2024.|History of Chinese Folk Literature]]* (Singapore: Springer Singapore, 2021), Chapter 1. [^3]: Zheng Zhenduo, *[[Zheng. 'History of Chinese Folk Literature', 2024.|History of Chinese Folk Literature]]* (Singapore: Springer Singapore, 2021), Chapter 1. [^4]: Zheng Zhenduo, *[[Zheng. 'History of Chinese Folk Literature', 2024.|History of Chinese Folk Literature]]* (Singapore: Springer Singapore, 2021), Chapter 1. [^5]: Zheng Zhenduo, *[[Zheng. 'History of Chinese Folk Literature', 2024.|History of Chinese Folk Literature]]* (Singapore: Springer Singapore, 2021), Chapter 1. [^6]: Zheng Zhenduo, *[[Zheng. 'History of Chinese Folk Literature', 2024.|History of Chinese Folk Literature]]* (Singapore: Springer Singapore, 2021), Chapter 1. [^7]: Zheng Zhenduo, *[[Zheng. 'History of Chinese Folk Literature', 2024.|History of Chinese Folk Literature]]* (Singapore: Springer Singapore, 2021), Chapter 1. [^8]: Zheng Zhenduo, *[[Zheng. 'History of Chinese Folk Literature', 2024.|History of Chinese Folk Literature]]* (Singapore: Springer Singapore, 2021), Chapter 1. [^9]: Zheng Zhenduo, *[[Zheng. 'History of Chinese Folk Literature', 2024.|History of Chinese Folk Literature]]* (Singapore: Springer Singapore, 2021), Chapter 1. [^10]: Zheng Zhenduo, *[[Zheng. 'History of Chinese Folk Literature', 2024.|History of Chinese Folk Literature]]* (Singapore: Springer Singapore, 2021), Chapter 1. [^11]: Zheng Zhenduo, *[[Zheng. 'History of Chinese Folk Literature', 2024.|History of Chinese Folk Literature]]* (Singapore: Springer Singapore, 2021), Chapter 1.