한국설화의 분류에 관한 제언 : 형식담(形式譚)에서 유희담(遊戱譚)으로

Abstract

This paper began with doubts as to whether the term “formula tale,” first proposed by Stith Thompson and since widely adopted in academia, is actually appropriate. Thompson referred to tales in which “the central situation is simple, but the formal handling of it assumes a certain complexity” as formula tales. However, an examination of whether the subcategories of formula tales as classified by Thompson correspond to the concept of formula tales as he defined them led to the discovery of a number of problems. The classification of Korean folktale types suffers from the same problems found in Thompson’s classification of formula tales, and to these are added a few more problems: the distinction between tales and jokes is vague, aspects of interaction with folk songs are evident, and the reason why imitation tales cannot be included in formula tales is unclear. As a result, it was judged that the term “formula tales” and the type categories that this term includes are not suited as classifications of tales, and there was the need to propose a new term. Setting aside the issue of the inadequateness as classifications of the term “formula tales” and the type categories that it includes, the corpus of works that have been referred to as formula tales exhibited both grouping and independence. In particular, there was a need to pay attention to the voice of the teller at the time and place of the telling, and it was possible to isolate “playful character” as a primary characteristic of these tales. These tales exhibited a playful aspect, in which the teller through the medium of the story teased or bewildered the listener(s), and as a result the term “play-oriented tales” (yuhuidam) was proposed instead of “formula tales.” When the orientation toward play, rather than the formula, became the focus, it was possible to resolve much of the categorical confusion surrounding this type of tale. The final section attempted a classification of play-oriented tales as a tentative attempt to determine the feasibility of such a classification. Play-oriented tales were first divided into “story play-oriented tales” and “song play-oriented tales,” and then “story play-oriented tales” were further classified as either “formula play-oriented tales” and “situation play-oriented tales.”