Storytelling - Emancipation of The Story

Emancipation of The Story

In oral traditions, stories are kept alive by being re-told again and again. The material of any given story naturally undergoes several changes and adaptations during this process. When and where oral tradition was pushed back in favor of print media, the literary idea of the author as originator of a story's authoritative version changed people's perception of stories themselves. In the following centuries, stories tended to be seen as the work of individuals, rather than a collective effort. Only recently, when a significant number of influential authors began questioning their own roles, the value of stories as such – independent of authorship – was again recognized. Literary critics such as Roland Barthes even proclaimed the Death of the Author.

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Famous quotes containing the words emancipation of the, emancipation of, emancipation and/or story:

    ... women learned one important lesson—namely, that it is impossible for the best of men to understand women’s feelings or the humiliation of their position. When they asked us to be silent on our question during the War, and labor for the emancipation of the slave, we did so, and gave five years to his emancipation and enfranchisement.... I was convinced, at the time, that it was the true policy. I am now equally sure that it was a blunder.
    Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)

    The emancipation of today displays itself mainly in cigarettes and shorts. There is even a reaction from the ideal of an intellectual and emancipated womanhood, for which the pioneers toiled and suffered, to be seen in painted lips and nails, and the return of trailing skirts and other absurdities of dress which betoken the slave-woman’s intelligent companionship.
    Sylvia Pankhurst (1882–1960)

    The right to vote, or equal civil rights, may be good demands, but true emancipation begins neither at the polls nor in courts. It begins in woman’s soul.
    Emma Goldman (1869–1940)

    The history of men’s opposition to women’s emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself.
    Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)