on the quest and give him a sword, acting as both dispatcher and donor. Criticism Propp's approach has been criticized for its excessive formalism (a major critique of the Soviets). One of the most prominent critics of Propp was structuralist Claude Lévi-Strauss, who, in dialogue with Propp, argued for the superiority of the paradigmatic over syntagmatic approach. Propp responded to this criticism in a sharply-worded rebuttal: he wrote that Lévi-Strauss showed no interest in empirical investigation. See also Aarne–Thompson classification system References External links The Functions of the Dramatis Personae The 31 narrative units of Propp's formula - Jerry Everard The Birth of Structuralism from the Analysis of Fairy-Tales – Dmitry Olshansky / Toronto Slavic Quarterly, No. 25 The Fairy Tale Generator: generate your own Inaccessible as of 12 Oct 2012, but available via Criticism Vladimir Propp (1895-1970) / The Literary Encyclopedia (2008) Assessment of Propp A Folktale Outline Generator: based on Propp's Morphology The Historical Roots of the Wonder Tale Propp's examination of the origin of specific folktale motifs in customs and beliefs, initiation rites. Linguistic Formalists by C. John Holcombe An interesting essay through the story of Russian Formalism. Biography of Vladimir Propp at the Gallery of Russian Thinkers An XML Markup language based on Propp at the University of Pittsburgh 1895 births 1970 deaths Academic staff of Saint Petersburg State University Russian folklorists Russian people of German descent Soviet folklorists Soviet philologists 20th-century philologists Researchers of Slavic religion Soviet literary historians Soviet male writers 20th-century male writers Folklorists