The Deep Cultural Work of Chatter

"The horror of the oral, of stories that lack the luster of the literary, stems in part from the link between old wives' tales and gossip, or idle chatter. How could these trifles possibly be dignified with print? But gossip has value precisely because it creates opportunities for talking through the emotional entanglements of our social lives. Its participants jointly construct narratives from the stuff of everyday life, spicy plots charged with speculative glee. Gossip takes up a range of topics, among them scandal, which invites us to engage in talk about moral dilemmas and social conflicts. And, more important, it serves as a resource for those without access to other options for securing knowledge, operating as a licensed form of release that may not upend the order of things but still serves as an expressive outlet." Folklorist Maria Tatar shares more about the surprising and subversive power of gossip in this excerpt from her book,"The Heroine with 1001 Faces."

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