This recent addition to Greenwood Press’ folklore handbooks is an excellent contribution to their series, which includes publications on folktales, campus legends, proverbs, myths, and numerous other folkloric topics. Books in this series will likely appeal to non-specialized readers with a broad interest in folklore, but there is also sufficient scholarly analysis and bibliographic reference to satisfy the interests of scholars, and especially, students of folklore.
As are many books in this series, German Folklore: A Handbook is organized into five chapters. An introductory chapter provides an overview of the scope and limitations of the topic and situates German folklore within historical eras and distinctive cultural regions. Dow then discusses the study of German folklore within this context and gives a clear overview of the various genres presented in subsequent chapters. Chapter Two, "Definitions and Classifications," is the requisite "What is folklore?" section of a handbook. Dow draws heavily from Jan Brunvand’s generalizations about folklore to provide a clear and accessible introduction to the scope of folklore study. He gives an interesting overview of key concepts in folklore, especially as they are related to a history of German scholarship. Although it can be a challenge to have this obligatory treatment of concepts and genres sound fresh and new, Dow makes this discussion interesting by showing how the salient concepts are relevant to particular examples of German folklore as a body of knowledge as well as a field of study.
The largest section of the book is simply entitled "Examples and Texts." This third chapter is a broad overview of numerous forms and genres of folklore. Dow presents the material largely in a chronological order, beginning with a discussion of early Germanic myths, epics, and legends and relating these examples of early lore to ancient cosmology. After this section, Dow focuses on folkloric forms that can be traced to the Medieval and Renaissance eras. He provides excellent texts and summaries of a variety of genres, and the majority of the variants he presents are highly readable and engaging texts. Individual texts or groupings of texts are often followed by interpretive commentary that links the reader to a well-chosen bibliography for more information. Dow concludes this chapter by focusing mainly on folklore collected during the Romantic era and the period of early Modernism. He broadens his presentation beyond narrative forms to include interesting descriptions of rituals, customs, material culture, foodways, and a representative sample of a range of other expressive forms.
The fourth chapter, "Scholarship and Approaches," shifts the tone into a more academic treatment of folklore. Whereas the first three chapters seem oriented to lay readers, high school students, and undergraduates, this chapter could work well as a treatise on folklore’s intellectual history. The chapter looks at folklore within a range of theories developed mainly by German scholars. Dow provides a good treatment of the various ideological underpinnings of this body of research, and he offers a good critique of the co-optation of folklore and the development of the ideologically-charged theories complicit with the National Socialist Party of the German Reich. Dow’s discussion serves as an excellent précis of his 1994 book The Nazification of an Academic Discipline. The overview of theories and approaches concludes with a discussion of post World War II folklore study in Germany and other European nations. This chapter is followed by Chapter Five, "Contexts," where Dow discusses a range of influences on the contemporary study of German folklore and explains how German folklore has become part of mass media, tourist culture, and popular arts not only in Europe but also in the United States.
Individually, each section is strong. The book provides an excellent introduction to German folklore and will serve as a handbook for further study. Readers will also appreciate the fine presentations of texts and traditions. Perhaps because of the nature of contemporary scholarship on German folklore, however, the material in "Examples and Texts" does not fully integrate with the conclusions Dow discusses in the chapter on "Scholarship and Approaches." One problem is that "folklore"--or more specifically Volkskunde--has essentially been replaced by Ethnologie. Dow entitles this section of the chapter "Farewell to Folklife." The sense that German scholars have historicized the field of folklore pervades Dow’s writing, and these conclusions make it a challenge to envision what future scholarship on German folklore may entail.
This post-folklore orientation may be part of contemporary scholarship. If so, how are readers to look at the earlier chapter that provides examples and texts of German folklore? If the contemporary world of German scholarship is decidedly post-folklore, then the very concept of "German folklore" is called into question. If the phantoms of Romantic Nationalism have so haunted the legacy of German folklore scholarship that current folklorists can no longer easily speak of distinctions between authentic folk culture and Folklorismus, then what is to become of older ways of thinking about the material of folklore?
Perhaps it is not within the scope of a handbook on German folklore to explore the implications of no longer being able to speak of "German folklore," but the schism between the content of Chapter Three and the theoretical implications of Chapter Four deserves more consideration. Dow makes the strong point that "folklore" was excised from German folklorists’ vocabularies. Consequently, the discipline’s focus in Germany was broadened to include the examination of "all forms of cultural practice in their objective and symbolic manifestation" (199). If we follow this line of argument, the material on folklore that Dow so clearly presents throughout the book has become an anachronistic way of thinking about German folklore. In his concluding chapter, Dow seems not to fully accept this implication, and perhaps subsequent scholarship will devise resources and perspectives for reclaiming concepts like community, continuity, tradition, and heritage from the historical dustbin of the Nazification of an important discipline.
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[Review length: 972 words • Review posted on April 12, 2007]