Open AccessThe Dragonslayer: Folktale Classification, Memetics, and Cataloguing
Author(s) -
Alex Mayhew
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
proceedings from the document academy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2473-215X
DOI - 10.35492/docam/7/1/3
Subject(s) - storytelling , memetics , inheritance (genetic algorithm) , variety (cybernetics) , history , literature , sociology , art , computer science , evolutionary biology , biology , artificial intelligence , narrative , genetics , gene
Tales of great heroes overcoming great monsters have been a part of storytelling since time immemorial. Some of these tales follow recurring patterns, and one such pattern is that of ‘The Dragonslayer.’ From tales of Tristan and Iseult and Saint George and the Dragon, to the confrontation with the dragon Smaug in The Hobbit, ‘The Dragonslayer’ has been an enduring example of a recurring pattern in storytelling. I will use the storytelling pattern of ‘The Dragonslayer’ as a bridge between a variety of knowledge organization systems. To do so, I will approach storytelling patterns, like ‘The Dragonslayer’, as memes: units of cultural inheritance analogous to genes in biology. This memetic approach may be the foundation of a new way of unifying disperate knowledge organization systems.