How to teach yourself an Introduction to Chinese Folk Literature

Folk literature is the language art of working people, the oldest literature and the most popular literature. Almost all the important literary forms in the history of our country originated from folk literature, and the literary climax of past dynasties has a profound relationship with folk literature. At all times, almost all great writers who have made great achievements are bred from folk literature. Therefore, we should not underestimate the position and role of Chinese folk literature in the history of literature. In China's higher education, "Introduction to Chinese Folk Literature" is one of the undergraduate examination subjects of Chinese language and literature. However, because this course has been neglected in some local universities for a long time and has not been included in the teaching subject, or many candidates have never been exposed to this course before, it is difficult to find relevant review materials now. Therefore, it is necessary for us to talk about the self-study focus, self-study methods and examination methods of this course here.

To learn and test this course well, of course, we must first have a designated textbook for the national higher education self-study exam, which is an introduction to Chinese folk literature edited by Duan and published by Peking University. At the same time, it is best to refer to the book Introduction to Folk Literature, edited by Zhong Jingwen and published by Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House. In addition, the Chinese Counseling Center for Higher Education of Nanchang University has an exam counseling book "Introduction to Chinese Folk Literature", which fully cooperates with the preparation of the designated teaching materials. Starting from the examination contents and requirements specified in the examination syllabus, it covers the main contents of the teaching materials, highlights the knowledge points and key points, and is convenient for candidates to review and consolidate what they have learned.

Introduction to Chinese Folk Literature systematically teaches the basic knowledge, theories and representative works of folk literature. Its self-study focuses on: (1) basic knowledge and theory: the definition of folk literature, the difference between folk literature and non-folk literature, the relationship between folk literature and writers' literature, the characteristics of folk literature, the classification of folk literature, the value of folk literature, the characteristics and classification of folk stories, the definition of myths, the difference between myths and religions, and the difference between myths and legends. The definition of fable, the philosophy of fable, the characteristics of fairy tales, the personification of fairy tales, the class nature of jokes, the difference between "songs" and "ballads", the various genres of folk songs and their characteristics, the characteristics of proverbs, the making methods of riddles and their development and evolution history, the artistic characteristics of two-part allegorical sayings, the classification of long folk poems, the classification of folk folk quyi, the difference between quyi and drama, the characteristics of storytelling, and cross talk.

(2) Main works: China's traditional fairy tales (for example, after the creation of the earth by Nu Wa, the God of Creation, patching up the sky and shooting the sun by Pangu), China's four major folk tales (namely, the legend of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, the legend of Meng Jiangnu, the legend of the White Snake), Ashima, the biography of King Gesar, the song of the Liusha River and the song of Dai Jia.

(3) The relationship between important people and folk literature: Lu Xun's view of folk literature, Gorky and folk literature, Kang Langying, Kang Langshuai and folk lyrics, Wang Shaotang and storytelling, Qu Yuan's creation and folk literature.

Generally speaking, to learn this course well, we must first correct our attitude towards folk literature. Some people regard it as an undesirable thing because it has the word "folk", but they don't know that it is the source of all literature and has an irreplaceable position and role in the literary history of ancient and modern China and foreign countries. Secondly, we should pay attention to integrating theory with practice and use theoretical knowledge to analyze and understand the works. For example, legends in Liang Zhu have different endings in different places. In Jiangsu and Zhejiang, it is said that Liang Zhu became a pair of beautiful butterflies, while in Sichuan, they became birds flying with me, and in Guangdong, they became a rainbow on the horizon. How to treat the different endings of the same story requires the use of folk literature knowledge. Folk literature has communication variability in communication mode, which leads to different "variants" of the same "motif" in different time and space There are different versions of the same Liang Zhu story in different regions. Third, we should be good at using comparison and examples to distinguish concepts from research works. Such as: the comparison between folk literature and writers' literature, the comparison between Chinese and foreign creation myths, the comparison between myths and religions, the comparison between folk songs and folk songs, and so on. Examples are most suitable for understanding abstract theory. For example, explain the scientific, artistic or practical value of folk literature.

I usually study well, but I still play well in the exam. Be familiar with the teaching materials before the exam and do more test-taking ability training questions. Read the test paper first, then do the easy questions. Answer questions with clear thinking, open mind, make full use of what you have learned and achieve mastery through a comprehensive study. For example, when analyzing the Biography of King Gesar, some people only explained what King Gelsall did, but ignored the characteristics of this work as a typical heroic epic and its role in the development of long folk poems. In addition, think calmly about unanswerable questions; Don't take it for granted For example, I once got an analysis of the ideological content of Iron Bull, a lyric poem written by an old Mongolian artist Mao Yihan in the form of Haolibao, which caused great repercussions when the train first arrived in the grassland after liberation. Many candidates usually don't pay attention to review, and take it for granted that the "iron cow" is a "tractor" during the exam, saying that the poem is about the benefits of tractors for rural cultivated land.

Of course, Rome was not built in a day. If you want to get good grades in the self-study exam, you can't do without the usual "sharpening your knife" and "misfiring". If you can be familiar with the textbook, grasp the key points and integrate theory with practice, you can pass the exam smoothly.