City dwellers views on the minstrel tale tradition

Abstract

Studies on minstrel literature are seen to focus on minstrels and their oeuvres. Yet, as researchers like Alan Dundes and Dan Ben Amos underscore, in the creation process of an oral artwork, artist and listeners / receivers play equally vital roles. Hereby, this article will address specifically the highly disregarded issue of listener / receiver. To this end, a survey has been made with a selected group of city dwellers of different social backgrounds and milieus, including primary school, high school and university students, as well as adults. These results of this survey have been interpreted in order both to discuss the constantly changing concept of "folk" and to consider, these groups' attitude towards minstrel literature and their views on this literature.