Introduction

Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp was born in 1895 in St. Petersberg. He studied Russian and German Philosophy before becoming a teacher of both languages. In 1932 he joined what had become Leningrad University, eventually chairing the Department of Folklore until it was assimilated into that of Russian Literature. He remained on the faculty until his death in 1970.

Originally published in 1928, Morphology of the Folktale was not translated into English until 1958. It was Propp's response to contemporary analyses of Russia's oral tradition, which he considered to be clouded by the specific narrative content of the various texts being examined, typically causing inconsistencies in the division of story type peculiar to each commentator. By contrast Propp took his lead from botany, seeking to identify underlying types by their structural qualities, regardless of the specific narrative content - so, as the plant family demonstrates different genus, each boasting particular species, his analysis would seek to uncover the structural genus of which each particular tale would be a species member.

Morphology has been heralded and decried in about equal measure, but Propp undeniably had great impact upon studies of folklore. In my opinion, like Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces, Propp's work can be made a useful tool for developing effective stories not just in the genre of the folktale. In this blog I intend to provide an accessible overview of the structure he outlined and develop ideas about how it can be used in the context of modern fiction writing.