history, have had to constantly fight off foreign aggression and domination
in order to attain national independence, therefore, there is a strong
allegiance to "nationhood". And naturally events and phenomena are often
explained from "historical" views. " (Nguyen Dong Chi: 76-77). The
unique historical perception of the Vietnamese is said to underlie their
artistic thought patterns which are different from other communities. This is
a noteworthy line of argument.
3. In the later parts of his works, Nguyen Dong Chi makes a profound study
of the prevailing thought patterns of Vietnamese which are used as the
underlying assumption for the analysis of the main characteristics of
Vietnamese folklore. Nguyen Dong Chi’s analysis is based on his keen
insight and broad knowledge of the subject matter, hence the originality in
his theoretical treatment. He comments that mythical folklore account for a
modest proportion, and the degrees as well as the frequency of mythical
magnification are not so great. This conclusion is drawn from careful
statistics on the number and types of mythical stories. In addition, he goes
into analyze them against the backdrop of the typical thought patterns of
the Vietnamese to arrive at their features such as "[Vietnamese mythical
stories] do not deviate too far from the mundane world" (Vol. V: 2426), are
"closely bound by realties" (Ibid.: 2428), have "little religious inclination"
(Ibid.: 2428). He also mapped out a chart showing the impact of thought
patterns on the information of "native artistic creation" (Ibid.:2428),
especially on the "development of a folk story... in which there is a constant
and subconscious shift from supernatural elements towards more
humanistic values" (Ibid. :2428). This shows the author’s sound
explanation.
However, literature by no means, is passive and one-way reflection of
