What is storytelling?

The act of telling stories, which are narratives with a beginning, middle, and conclusion, is known as storytelling.

Learn about the storytelling in this article

What is storytelling? — **Homer’s The Illiad Ancient epic poem The Iliad by Homer is one of the most renowned of its kind and throughout the lengthy history of human storytelling.**

The storytelling

The act of telling or writing stories, or narratives, is known as storytelling. Usually, people tell stories for fun, for information, or for instructional purposes.

It is a universal human experience to tell stories. It has been proposed that storytelling originated shortly after the emergence of language, though this is likely hard to establish.

History of storytelling

We are aware that stories have been shared in every culture. The cave paintings at France’s Lascaux and Chavaux provide some of the earliest documentation of storytelling. The drawings, which may be as old as 30,000 years ago, show animals, people, and various other things. Some of them seem to be visual narratives. It’s even conceivable that the images painted on those cave walls were part of an oral tradition of storytelling.

Telling a narrative orally involves using voice and gestures. Oral storytelling is an ancient and cross-cultural tradition, just like storytelling itself. The oral tradition can be expressed through chants, songs, rhymes, epic poems, and more. It may include beliefs, prayers, proverbs, tales, myths, legends, and instructions.

Epic poetry, such as the Sumerian The Tale of Gilgamesh and the Greek The Iliad, were first recited orally and passed down through generations before being recorded. Similar to this, Aesop was possibly a storyteller who, if he ever existed, lived in the sixth century B.C.E. He and his animal fables are mentioned by later Greek writers, but they were originally part of the oral tradition.

Other cultures, including the Choctaw Native Americans, have animal fables that were originally transmitted orally. The Choctaw animal fables are meant to teach lessons, just like Aesop’s tales. In the past, the Choctaw used the oral tradition to transmit sacred traditions such as their creation stories.

Of course, stories can now be told orally, in written or handwritten form, as well as through the use of audio and video recordings.

We are all and always have been story consumers, regardless of the media.

Why,are people drawn to stories?

We may feel more in control, which is one possible explanation. In other words, it enables us to make meaning of the random events in a world and put some order into the things that have happened to us.

We may see other people’s thoughts and emotions through stories.

To put it another way, they can help us relate to those around us.

In fact, research suggests that people exhibit greater empathy in real life the more fascinating the story is.

Additionally, stories help us communicate knowledge in a memorable fashion, which may have aided our ancestors in collaborating and surviving. We retain the information better when it is presented as a tale rather than as a list of dry facts.

Whatever the motivations, there are stories everywhere. We spend a lot of our life telling others about the things we did, the places we went, and the people we were with. As far back as history goes, people have been telling stories, and it’s probable that they will do so for the rest of their lives.

Read alsow : Eli Whitney biography

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What is storytelling?