2010/09/01 by Francisco Vaz da Silva · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Social Sciences · Mathematics · #Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies #Culinary Culture and Tourism #Media, Gender, and Advertising #Proposition #Axiom #Consistency (knowledge bases) #Literature #History #Epistemology #Philosophy #Art #Computer science #Mathematics #Artificial intelligence
paper · pdf · doi:10.1353/jaf.2010.0001
openalex publication_date 2010/09/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/03
Ruth B. Bottigheimer has contended that a specific literary man invented the fairy-tale genre less than five centuries ago. This article is a critical examination of her claim. It interrogates the axioms underlying Bottigheimer’s proposition, probes the logical consistency of her account, and surveys Bottigheimer’s use of empirical evidence. It concludes that while Bottigheimer’s proposition is a healthy challenge to folklorists who would disregard literary texts as a matter of principle, her assumptions, reasoning, and conclusions leave much to be desired.