INTERTEXTUALITY IN HUẾ FOLK LEGENDS ABOUT KING GIA LONG: A MOTIF-BASED PERSPECTIVE
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37569/DalatUniversity.15.4.1561(2025)Keywords:
Folk motifs, King Gia Long legends, Huế folklore, Intertextuality, Vernacular discourse.Abstract
This article investigates how folk legends concerning King Gia Long in Huế employ narrative motifs as intertextual devices to reconstruct historical meaning, negotiate collective memory, and engage in dialogic exchange with official historiography. Rather than treating motifs as isolated content elements, the study approaches them as intertextual nodes that generate and transform meaning within the broader network of vernacular storytelling. To this end, the research integrates intertextual discourse analysis (Barthes, 1977; Kristeva, 1986) with the classification system of the Motif-Index of Folk-Literature by Thompson (1955). The source material consists of field-collected legends from Huế, systematically compared with official historiographical texts such as the “Đại Nam thực lục” [The Veritable Records of the Great South] and “Khâm định Việt sử Thông giám cương mục” [The Imperially Ordered Annotated Text Completely Reflecting the History of Viet], to clarify motif interactions across textual strata. The findings reveal a dialogic structure organized around two narrative axes: one that sacralizes and legitimizes monarchical authority, and another that adopts a morally reflective stance questioning the exercise of power. By combining motif theory with intertextual analysis, the article proposes a new approach to studying folk legends about contested historical figures, thereby contributing novel insights to the fields of folklore studies, literary theory, historiography, and cultural anthropology.
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