Fundamental, Pervasive, Powerful

When I heard about this year's Summer at MCPL theme, "Telling Tales," I remembered a professor I had years ago. My professor, Robert A. Georges, was a folklorist dedicated to documenting and analyzing traditional oral stories and storytelling and teaching his students to do the same. From sponge divers in Florida to his neighbors in Los Angeles to even himself in the classroom, Georges listened intently and respectfully, insisting that storytelling is a “fundamental, pervasive, and powerful mode of communicating.”

Like all good scholars, Georges built on the work of his predecessors, such as Stith Thompson and Richard Dorson (whose books are in The Story Center), and added something new. In this case, it was to understand the dynamics of oral storytelling. During his nearly thirty-year career, Georges researched and wrote many articles through which several themes run:

• Stories are part of daily life. For some people, a “storyteller” is a specific role, even an occupation, and honed stories are performed in formal settings. But most of us tell stories informally in the rounds of our daily lives—around the kitchen table, in the breakroom at work—for a variety of reasons in addition to entertainment. 
• Story listeners are as important as storytellers. The “feedback and response” between a storyteller and their audience, whether one person or one hundred people, creates a dynamic storytelling “event” that cannot be repeated. As Terry Tempest Williams has written, “Story is the relationship between the teller and the listener, a responsibility.”  
• Stories can express similarities between people. Comparing stories and storytellers from different cultures, Georges was interested ultimately in how people are alike, what connects them. Appreciating another’s story, he implied, could lead to a fuller understanding of the range of human experiences. 

“Everyone has a Story,” reads the tagline of Telling Tales. Or, as Georges put it, “All human beings are storytellers with many tales to tell.”  What are your stories? If you want help telling them, check out the services and resources of The Story Center. 

Mark L.
~The Story Center