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Folk tales usually revolve around the theme of love. Going through struggles and trials, moving to foreign lands, yearning for one’s sweetheart, and even risking death for the sake of love are narrated in an aestheticized form. In the meantime, some mythic or fantastic elements can be used to make the tale more interesting and easier to remember. This study examines the tales Ferhat ile Şirin, Leyla ile Mecnûn, Kerem ile Aslı, and Kirmanşah, using different variants identified in studies in Turkey, in the context of four elements with love-related and mythic roots. Known as anasır-ı erbaa (water, earth, fire and air) in Turkish literature, the four elements take the center stage in the explanation of events from the creation of the universe to the end of days, and from the emergence of myths and religions to other events that people can not explain with their current knowledge of natural or spiritual forces. The four elements, which feature in many different genres and are interpreted differently in different areas of life, are found in literary texts as well. This study examines the place of the elements of water, fire, earth and air in the narrative structures of the tales Ferhat ile Şirin, Leyla ile Mecnûn, Kerem ile Aslı, and Kirmanşah. Information about the four elements of water, earth, fire and air shape the unfolding of events in the tales directly or indirectly, or are associated with specific characters, making it possible to read these tales in the context of the “four elements”. Textual analysis will be used to examine these elements in the contexts of “love”, “trial” and “initiation” in the four tales selected. Some of the texts examined are written tales in manuscript or print format, and others are oral tales collected by the researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Saying archetypes that are, indeed, collective values of humanity and are images handed down from past to present, from generation to generation, Jung - a prominent psychologist, thinker and the founder of analytical psychology states that they affect many fields from daily life of individual to various literary works. Especially types of oral narrative art such as tales, epics and folk stories have close relations with symbolic language and collective unconscious, especially with myths. Using Campbell's "separation-initiation-return" formula in order to unearth symbolic language and archetypal in these narratives will help to reach encoded information/reality. In tales and folk stories, hero embarks on adventure to complete his individuation process in accordance with "separation-initiation-return" archetypes. In the process "the wise man", "shadow", "anima-animus", "ego" archetypes take roles in the narrative through the adventure knitted with symbolic values. Thanks to the analysis of those archetypes, it becomes possible to bring symbolic values in the works to light. Thus, cultural hinterlands of the works and their multilayer meanings passed from past to present will be able to be unearthed. In the analysis done within this study related to the texts of "Gündeşlioğlu Hikâyesi" (The Story of Gündeşlioğlu) and "Evvel mi Gelsin, Sonra mı?" (Shall it Come First or Later?), it has been observed that by adapting the archetype symbolism in narrative types, the processes throughout the reality have not been coincidental but the conscious indicators of change and conversion by the collective reflections of centuries. As a result of the analysis of these archetypes reflected in the texts, not only how the collective values of humanity have been reflected to the literary works via symbolic language will be determined but also the multilayer meanings from past to present will be revealed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Folk and fairy tales are like cultural gene maps for human communities. The codes of these genetic maps are transmitted from one generation to the next both orally and in black and white. Setting off from this metaphor, this article studies the evaluation of literary fairy tales in Eastern and Western cultures comparatively. It examines the process of transmission of literary fairy tale from one generation to another and questions the place of "Brothers Grimm" in this chain. It brings to the fore the relationship of French fairy tale traditions and the stories of Perrault. It also discusses whether the Brothers Grimm are a turning point in folk and fairy tale research or whether they produced fakelore. Additionally, the literary fairy tale tradition of Eastern cultures and its weakening after the 19th century are examined. It is concluded that the Grimm Brothers did not actually create fakelore but rather followed the story traditions both prior and contemporary to their time. Therefore, it stresses that there is no need to either applaud or criticize them. It is also concluded that the Grimm Brothers and the evaluation of folk and fairy tales as products of written culture should be examined from the point of applied folklore sciences. In addition, the issues of neglecting the need to rewrite Turkish fairy tale culture or reproduce the old stories in different ways are highlighted. The need to care for these stories and the need to change the current neglecting situation are underlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Suna ile Çoban Hikâyesi (The Story of Suna and the Shepherd) written by MP Besim Atalay was awarded first place in a contest held by the Directorate-General of Press for literary works that would modernize folk books. In this article, the story is considered as fakelore using the tradition of folk tales in line with the request of the Directorate-General of Press to reinforce the "national upbringing" of the folk living in villages and towns by providing them reading material. What does the women's issues in this text tell us about the function of such reproduction of tradition? As mentioned in some theories of nationalism focusing on women's issues, nationalists have usually compared the nation to the family and have therefore considered men as the protectors of the family and the nation, and women praised for being mothers as the namus (honor) of the family and the nation. As a result of this nation-as-family metaphor, love of country in Suna ile Çoban Hikâyesi bears the image of the country as a woman's body and hence implies eroticization of the land. The traditional role thus given to women in Besim Atalay's work of fakelore shows the reinforcements with respect to the extent of modernization in the Republican Period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ferhat and Şirin, Kerem and Aslı, Leyla and Mecnun, which are the folk tales existing in the verbal culture, imply some traditions which have been motif like love, marriage, adventure, heroism and altruism. Thanks to this implying, the concept of "holy love" has been settled in the memory of society. The movie named Evlidir Ne Yapsa Yeridir (he is married and he can do whatever he wishes), which transforms these images existing in memory to a parody in order to criticize them and also to entertain the audience, will be analyzed in this article on the focus of parody as a method of intertextuality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ziya Gökalp's tales which were published in Küçük Mecmûa, are named as "folk tale" by literature researchers. However, these tales might have changed in some ways when they were being transferred from oral culture to literary culture and they may have lost their oral features at certain levels. Hence, calling these tales "folk tales" will bring some problems. In this study, Gökalp's tale "Kolsuz Hanim" has been examined to find out how far this tale differs from its oral sources, the tales of "Merd-i Sâlih" and "Helvacı Güzeli" as a result of its transition process. In addition, the author focused on the sociological and ideological dimensions of the changes made by Gökalp while rewriting the tales and the Gökalp's aims for making those changes in the fiction have been discussed. Moreover, intertextual relations between Gökalp's text and its oral sources have been analysed in order to develop a new perspective for evaluation of the texts that have been transferred to literary culture. In conclusion, it has been asserted that calling them "folk tales" is inaccurate. Thus, in the light of Ong's definition of "art epic", the author suggested that these tales should be called "art tales". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]