STUDY ON THE CLASSICAL LITERATURE AND FOLKTALE

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In the Greek and Latin classical literature one can find many elements taken from folktales and old legends. Especially in epic and tragedy, which narrate mythological stories and include many folkloric motifs, classical authors not only adopted these elements in isolated episodes and digressions, but also applied the narrative forms and patterns of folktales to the basic structure and development of their literary works. In this research I investigated, by using the philological method, this aspect of the literary creation which has not been examined enough so far, particularly in the main works of epic and tragedy.The results of my research can be classified into three categories: 1.comparative study of the Homeric poems and modern oral epic songs; 2.important parts played by folklore in the formation and development of Homer's biography; 3.very interesting influence of folktales on Sophocles' "Oedipus Tyrannus" and "Oedipus Coloneus". Above all, I demonstrated that the two Sophoclean versions of the Oedipus legend had been created from his deep understanding of the folktale of "Enfant fatal" and I am sure that this result will be estimated as an important original contribution to the classical studies.