William Motherwell (1797-1835), journalist, poet, man-of-letters, wit, civil servant, and outspoken conservative, published his anthology of ballads, Minstrelsy: Ancient and Modern, in 1827. His views on authenticity, editorial practice, the nature of oral transmission, and the importance of sung performance--acquired through field collecting--anticipate much later scholarly discourse.
Published after the death of Burns and the publication of Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, ballads such as those Motherwell collected were one focus of a loose-knit movement that might...
William Motherwell (1797-1835), journalist, poet, man-of-letters, wit, civil servant, and outspoken conservative, published his anthology of ballad...
The essays in this volume reexamine common assumptions about "magic" tales and their tellers, reconsidering the performance, collection, transcription, publication, and interpretation of narratives that continue to live orally--especially in the private realm--as one mechanism of intergenerational communication or as a symbolic expression of worldview.
The essays in this volume reexamine common assumptions about "magic" tales and their tellers, reconsidering the performance, collection, transcription...
Long before the written word existed, humans expressed themselves by telling stories. Handed down through centuries, these stories were woven into the tapestry of everyday life. For close to three centuries, folklore has inspired adaptations to film, operas, ballets, short stories, novels, and poetry. Its no surprise, then, that many folklore scholars consider folklore as original literature--existing before written literature. Most folklorists seem to share the belief that folklore, whether drawn from oral observation or from the written record, is a rich cultural resource that is readily...
Long before the written word existed, humans expressed themselves by telling stories. Handed down through centuries, these stories were woven into ...
The premier scholar of the English-language traditional or popular ballad, Francis James Child spent decades working on his widely read and performed collection, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. In this first single author monograph of Child's life and work, Mary Ellen Brown analyzes Child's editorial methods, his decisions about which ballads to include, and his relationships with colleagues at Harvard and abroad. Brown draws on his extensive correspondence with collaborators to trace the production of his monumental work from conception and selection through organization and...
The premier scholar of the English-language traditional or popular ballad, Francis James Child spent decades working on his widely read and performed ...
