The Madonna and the Cuckoo: An Exploration in European Symbolic Conceptions

Extract

This paper means to suggest that it is good at times to step out of the glare of modern frames of intelligibility in order to perceive in ethnographic data dim, or subtle, signs of worldviews no longer apparent. It proposes to show, in this strain, that humble attention to folklore allows us to make sense of seemingly pointless trivia. Overall, the article is an experiment in interweaving ethnologic and folkloristic approaches to expand the relevant contexts of problematic cultural details and thus attain theoretical generalization.