The fox, the donkey and the magic pot: Enchantments and disenchantments in Argentinean folktales

Abstract

The tension between disenchantment and re-enchantment is as a distinctive feature of contemporary culture, being the return to the supernatural a counterpart of secularization of the (post)modern world. In this article, I deal with a parodic use of enchantment in a repertoire of traditional folktales of an Argentinian vernacular narrator, in a tension with re-enchantment in contemporary advertising discourse structured around the same folk narrative patterns.