Literary Studies

What has Puss’n Boots and the history of its transmission to do with the Bible? How can Folklore Studies help us to better understand how stories are composed and how best to use these findings with reference to the stories of the Hebrew Bible? What do we know about how oral tales change over the decades and can we, in fact, be sure that there are basic and significant differences between an oral as opposed to a written tale?

Closely related are questions of historicity; what do we know about the historical veracity of a tale purportedly told over generations of story tellers? Are some aspects of oral tale telling liable to change or do they transform themselves as time goes on?

Finally, we have issues of literary ‘type’.  Do certain literary types retain their historical veracity longer than others? Do all literary types evolve?

If you are interested in any of these questions and would like to pursue an inter-disciplinary approach to the biblical text involving the Hebrew Bible and folklore Studies, shoot me an e-mail and we can discuss your interests and the possibility of fulfilling them here at McGill.