Rocznik Komparatystyczny
Appalachian, Southern, Universal, Global: The Case of Fred Chappell
DOI: 10.18276/rk.2020.11-12
Cite
The full text is available
| ISSN: | 2081-8718 |
| eISSN: | 2353-2831 |
| Authors: |
Marcel
Arbeit
Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic |
| Keywords: | Appalachian literature southern literature Fred Chappell oral history tall tale windy universal motifs |
| Issue / book publication date: | 2020 |
| Page range: | 13 (237-249) |
| OAI-PMH: | Metadata |
 
| |
Abstract
The article discusses the universal and global features of southern and Appalachian
literature. As various southern writers confirmed in a 1980 poll, good regional writing
must have a broad appeal and focus on universal problems, without neglecting to
deal with specific local details, including dialects. Fred Chappell, a short story writer,
novelist, poet, and essayist from North Carolina, who often claims to be an Appalachian
author rather than a southern one, pursues the goal of universality through the use
of oral history. Exploiting the traditional Appalachian folk genre of a windy, a local
version of a tall tale, in some of his short stories he turns to universal motifs, listed, for
example, in Stith Thompson’s motif index. Analyzing two of Chappell’s short stories,
“The Storytellers” (including its early version “Elmer and Buford”) and “Simples,” the
article focuses on the ability of motifs to travel around the world.
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