'Kõik saab alguse tekstis!' Kas pöörduda tagasi klassikalise kaanoni juurde?

I will discuss the situation of narrative and folk narrative research in the context of Germany and German-speaking cultural space against the background of the entire field of folkloristic until the paradigmatic change in the 1970s. I will analyse the gnoseological discourse accompanying folklore research. By focusing on the text and contextual analysis I will propose seven criteria that enable to interpret the two tendencies in contemporary folk narrative research. On the one hand I do support the need to look at contemporary narrative genres, whereas on the other hand there is certainly a danger of the traditional canon of narrative research being abandoned. Translated from the original article "The text is the thing!" Zurück zum Kanon? which was published in German in Schweizerisches Archiv für Volkskunde vol. 97 (2001), pp. 5-11.