The Elements Of Folklore In Saltykova Shchedrin’s Literature

Mikhail Yevgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin was an outstanding Russian realist,satirist and revolutionary democrat of the 19 th century.He produced a series of satirical works in various genres,which are considered to be a satirical encyclopedia of Russian society.Shchedrin inherited the Russian literary tradition and used a large number of folk literature elements in his works,showing a full and varied Russian folk life and folk culture.From the perspective of folk literature,this thesis analyzes the folk literature elements in Shchedrin’s three works: The Fairy Tale Collection,The History of a City and The Golovlev Family.This study shows that in The Fairy Tale Collection,Shchedrin uses the folk literary genre,i.e.fairy tale,to compose the work,and imitates the narrative structure of folk literature,drawing on the formulaic beginning and end formulas in folk tales.In terms of characterization,he uses dichotomous thinking.In the aspect of plot structure,he uses three repetition rates.As far as writing style is concerned,the work is mixed with political and spoken language,and he uses rhetorical techniques that are commonly used in folk literature,such as fixed modifiers,exaggeration,and allegory,to make the language of the work more vivid and imaginative.In his novels,Shchedrin uses the theory of precedents and archetypes to analyze the folk literature origin of the ethnic names of the inhabitants in the Fools’ City and the folk literature elements of the characters in The Golovlev Family.He uses folk literature elements in his fairy tales and novels to make socio-political criticism with "Aesopian language".