Abstract

The stories that a culture tells are intimately connected to what Dewey referred to as "life as it is ordinarily lived" (1934), or as it once was. Works of art, Dewey noted, lost their connection to ordinary life and became, instead, specimens of fine art rather than artifacts connected to the daily lives of people. Art and artistic activity have consequently grown increasingly split off from communal life, rather than anchored within the culture. Folktales, steeped as they are within a particular culture, are repositories of cultural beliefs and traditions, and may be psychologically distant for the culturally different audience. In the absence of shared meaning, the story may be experienced as an interesting anthropological artifact, rather than as part of the lived experience of the storyteller and audience within the native culture.