Vladimir Propp (1895-1970)

• Born in Germany
• Focused on Russian Folk tales
• Studied Russian and German philosophy at University of St. Petersburg
• Morphology of the Folk Tale published in 1928
• Worked at University until his death
  • Was a German teacher
  • Chair of Department of Folklord
• He applied Russian Formalism to narrative structure
  • He simplified the elements of analysis by using Russian folk tales
  • Broke them down into narratemes
  • He used the narratemes to categorize all folk tales into 31 sequences
• He also grouped characters into 8 types
  • Some characters could cross over and obtain two or more types
• Biggest critic is Levi-Strauss (Structuralist)
  • Supporters claim that Levi-Strauss's views in "Structure and Form: Reflection on a work by Vladimir Propp" give too much emphasis to Propp's analysis
  • Only meant to be a building block of folk tales, not an explanation of the meaning of tales