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Seloloving (talk | contribs) m Reverted 1 edit by 45.116.231.26 (talk) to last revision by Northernhenge |
→Classification and parallels: I made a mistake here. Apperently, Gressmann cites about a dozen of stories, but I can't read the German article to verify this |
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The story is commonly viewed in scholarship as an instance or a reworking of a [[Folklore|folktale]]. Its folkloristic nature is apparent, among other things, in the dominance of [[direct speech]] which moves the plot on and contributes to the [[characterization]].<ref name="Mordechai Cogan 2001, p. 196">Mordechai Cogan, ''I Kings'' (Anchor Bible), New York: Doubleday, 2001, p. 196.</ref> The story is classified as [[Aarne-Thompson]] tale type 926, and many parallel stories have been found in world [[folklore]]. In Uther's edition of the Aarne-Thompson index,<ref>Hans-Jörg Uther, ''The Types of International Folktales: A Classification and Bibliography, Based on the System of Antii Aarne and Stith Thompson'', I, Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 2004.</ref> this tale type is classified as a [[Novella (folklore)|folk novella]], and belongs to a subgroup designated "Clever Acts and Words". Eli Yassif defines the folk novella as "a realistic story whose time and place are determined ... The novella emphasizes such human traits as cleverness, eroticism, loyalty, and wiliness, that drive the plot forward more than any other element".<ref>Eli Yassif, [https://books.google.com/books?id=LbZPv-2LO6YC&lpg=PP1&hl=en&pg=PA27#v=onepage&q&f=false ''The Hebrew Folktale: History, Genre, Meaning''] (Folklore Studies in Translation), Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1999, p. 27</ref>
[[Hugo Gressmann]] has found
[[File:Gaspar de Crayer - The judgement of Solomon.jpg|thumb|left|290px|''The Judgement of Solomon'' by [[Gaspar de Crayer]], c. 1620]]
The common motif in those parallel versions is that the wise judge announces an absurd procedure, which is reasonable in some perverse way: splitting the baby, according to the principle of compromise; or a tug of war, in which one can possibly presume that the true mother will be motivated to pull harder. But the procedure is actually a concealed emotional test, designed to force each woman to decide between her compassion for the baby and her will to win.<ref name="William Hansen 2002, p. 228">William Hansen, [https://archive.org/details/ariadnesthreadgu00hans/page/228 ''Ariadne's Thread: A Guide to International Tales Found in Classical Literature''], Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002, p. 228.</ref>
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