What does law have in common with a folk tale? Perspectives of application of Propp’s method in jurisprudence

Abstract

This study aims to present to the readers the achievements of Russian literary scholar Vladimir Propp and to analyse the possibility of applying them in jurisprudence. Propp researched literary pieces from the magical tale genre and came to a conclusion that their plot is composed of 31 repeating functions performed by 7 types of characters. Propp showed that despite variations in the names of actions, characters and superficial attributes in various folk tales, the deep level of the text of these works allowed readers to notice some identical elements between them. Propp’s major work - Morphology of the Folktale, together with anthropologist Claud Lévi-Strauss’s thought and the findings made by Noam Chomsky became an inspiration for the development of the French school of structuralism and narratological research. The discussion presented in this article fits the research realm called law and literature, especially its narratological branch. This study presents a synthetic elaboration on the state of the art of research on legal narratology and possible application and limitations of Propp’s thought in this field. This work does not rely on the analysis of the law in force, thereby a reference to such a method or a reference to the historical development of relevant law is unnecessary here. Instead, discourse analysis plays the pivotal role in this article. This paper points out that given the differences that occur between law and literature, Propp’s achievements may primarily play the role of inspiration for jurisprudence, though there are realms in which Propp’s method may be applied directly.

Keywords

• theory of law
• law and literature
• narratology
• Vladimir Propp
• Morphology of the Folktale