So far, from all my research into and thinking about the cultural evolution of narratives and characters, a couple of things seem clear:
1. Stories do not belong to storytellers and story listeners, because all stories are reassemblies of fragments on loan and depend on shared narrative sources. That includes all "owners" of so-called trademarks and copyrights.
2. Though distinct, genres of stories depend on one another, for there is no such thing as a pure genre, and all tale types have a symbiotic relationship to one another.
Homer taught me this. Gilgamesh and the Bible taught me this. The Greek writers of tragedy and comedy taught me this. Beowulf taught me this. The Lancelot /Grail Cycle taught me this. Cervantes and Shakespeare taught me this. The 1001 Nights taught me this. Jean-Louis Desalles and Jack Zipes and Robert Irwin and Marina Warner and Marshall Poe and Terence Deacon and Mikhail Bakhtin and William Hansen and Arthur Frank and Michael Tomasello and Vladimir Propp and Albert Lord and Milman Parry and Walker Burkert and Marion Blute and Kate Distin and Stephen Shennan and Michael Drout and Melvin Konner and MANY more authors using our commons of the mind taught me this.
1. Stories do not belong to storytellers and story listeners, because all stories are reassemblies of fragments on loan and depend on shared narrative sources. That includes all "owners" of so-called trademarks and copyrights.
2. Though distinct, genres of stories depend on one another, for there is no such thing as a pure genre, and all tale types have a symbiotic relationship to one another.
Homer taught me this. Gilgamesh and the Bible taught me this. The Greek writers of tragedy and comedy taught me this. Beowulf taught me this. The Lancelot /Grail Cycle taught me this. Cervantes and Shakespeare taught me this. The 1001 Nights taught me this. Jean-Louis Desalles and Jack Zipes and Robert Irwin and Marina Warner and Marshall Poe and Terence Deacon and Mikhail Bakhtin and William Hansen and Arthur Frank and Michael Tomasello and Vladimir Propp and Albert Lord and Milman Parry and Walker Burkert and Marion Blute and Kate Distin and Stephen Shennan and Michael Drout and Melvin Konner and MANY more authors using our commons of the mind taught me this.
More soon.
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