Traditional Ballads Research Articles

‘The Chief Preservers of Ballad Poetry’: Revisiting the Ballad Traditions of Scottish Women

The eighteenth century saw an increasing interest in oral narrative ballad poetry, whose perceived decline prompted major efforts among antiquarians and collectors to find and preserve all that remained of the old popular songs. Women, long associated with oral tradition, were seen as the preservers of ballad poetry, transmitting their songs orally across generations. Yet while male collectors acknowledged female singers’ contributions, they obscured the broader realities of women’s engagement with print ballad culture. This article revisits the ballad traditions of Scottish women, exploring how the male-dominated scholarly discourse of the era shaped perceptions of women’s involvement in ballad culture. While collectors emphasised the role of female singers as preservers of purely oral tradition, they downplayed women’s broader engagement with ballads as printed literature, including their participation in the commercial broadside industry as sellers and consumers. This study reveals a more nuanced picture of women's involvement in balladry, challenging traditional narratives that align women singers exclusively with oral ballad tradition. By acknowledging the diverse ways in which women participated in ballad culture, this research sheds light on the complexities of gender dynamics within the ballad tradition, highlighting the need for a re-evaluation of women’s reception and transmission of ballads historically.

Joshua McCarter Simpson's Songs and Mid-Nineteenth Century Antislavery Activism

AbstractThe Ohio-based Black songwriter, Joshua Simpson, published two books of antislavery songs in the mid-nineteenth century, Original Anti-Slavery Songs in 1852 and Emancipation Car in 1854. Unlike most other known songsters, which were compilations of poetry from several authors, Simpson authored original lyrics for borrowed melodies, and he did so with extraordinary care, engaging the original song to enhance his activist messages. Employing the rhetorical practice of signification, his linkage of new lyrics with preexisting songs sometimes builds upon meaning from the original text, reusing it to add weight to the moral and political arguments against slavery. He also extends nature imagery and lyrics about the comforts of home and family in traditional ballads and contemporary sentimental songs to his new lyrics, but more often his signifying practice is ironic. He inverts the original song's sentimentality in deliberately discomforting ways that could persuade Americans to assist self-emancipating people and work toward wholescale abolition of slavery. Simpson's most radical songs talk back irreverently to the originals, especially minstrel tunes containing degrading caricatures and proslavery propaganda as well as patriotic anthems proclaiming hypocritical platitudes. Simpson did not simply write new songs; he transformed some of the most popular and beloved songs of his era, harnessing their renown to sharpen his activist messages.

The image of the taiga in the ballads of Leonid Zaval’nyuk

The article is devoted to the study of the ballad genre in the lyrics of the poet Leonid Zaval’nyuk (1930-2010). The study focuses on the analysis of “The Taiga Ballad” and “The Ballad of Melting Snow,” which were included in the collection “Beyond the Receding Horizon” (1956). These ballads open and end the ballad cycle, consisting of five works. The plot of both ballads develops in the artistic space of the taiga, which becomes a place of moral testing for the heroes. Leonid Zaval’nyuk was the first to introduce the image of the taiga into the ballad. The decanonisation of the ballad genre occurs in the 19th century. Leonid Zaval’nyuk’s works not only preserve ballad traditions (third-person narration, appeal to archetypal plots, mixing Christian and pagan beliefs, personification of natural forces, the special role of the season and time of day in the development of the plot), but also the evolution of the genre takes place (refusal of the mystical component, increasing the realism of the narrative, first-person narration). The decanonisation of the ballad genre occurs in the 19th century. Leonid Zaval’nyuk turned to the ballad genre throughout his entire career. The motif of moral testing became one of the leading ones for the poet.

The ballad genre and its transformation in A. Galich’s song “Queen of the Mainland”

The research aims to trace the functioning of the ballad as a polycode genre in the song poetry of A. Galich. Comparative historical and hermeneutic methods were used, as well as approaches developed to study polycode text. The results show that narrative strategies are typical of resonant poetry precisely in combination with deeply personal experience of the main character of the song lyrics. This determines the productivity of the ballad form. It is shown that in the lyrics of “The Queen of the Mainland” A. Galich relies precisely on the romantic poetic tradition. However, he also introduces realistic elements, which generally correspond to the trends in the development and transformation of the genre that emerged in the 19th century. The double motivation of the fantastic, which is not typical of the traditional ballad, refers to a similar technique in magical prose. Other laws of the genre are also violated: the mystical is deprived of concretization, the text has obvious didactic features, the vocabulary varies from sublime to sharply reduced, and the everyday level of narration contrasts with the metaphysical layer of reasoning. It is concluded that the realistic component forms the epic content of the ballad, while the romantic component, associated with the irrational, brings A. Galich thoughts to the ontological level and gives the work an underlined lyricism.

We have never been human: Staging subjectivity from Diderot and Artaud to the aesthetics of the European refugee crisis

This essay explores the shifting matrix underlying the pervasive theater that enacts the making and unmaking of human subjectivity by focusing on key historical transformations and prominent contemporary manifestations. Offering a comparative analysis of Denis Diderot’s theory of the actor, and Antonin Artaud’s theater of cruelty, I argue that the paradox of the human had led to human–artwork hybrids well before the digital age of the posthuman recast the body as virtuality. Drawing on a broader understanding and scope of human–artwork hybridization, I examine two different yet equally memorable and infamous responses in 2015 to the European refugee crisis: the Petra László video and Norbert Baksa’s Der Migrant. The aesthetic and cultural practices revolving around the staging of the European refugee crisis constitute a key sphere in which this hybridization is tested, played out and in the context of East-Central Europe, calibrated to a ballad tradition whose generic conventions were reinvented in conjunction with a growing national identity in the 19th century. The ballad of ‘The Walled-Up Wife’ has enjoyed sustained popularity in East-Central Europe, ever since its anachronistic ‘rediscovery’ in multiple national literatures around the mid 1800s. It deserves critical attention, for its extensive cultural history as well as its rich vernacular heritage can shed new light on the ways in which the idea of material embodiment comes to bear extended meanings for a reconceptualization of the human in digital spaces of aesthetic rather than merely socio-political signification.

A woman's tradition? Quantifying gender difference in the Child ballads

AbstractWhile the major ballad‐collecting efforts of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were largely carried out by men, the academic discourse surrounding ballads gendered traditional balladry—orally transmitted narrative poetry—as a woman's tradition. Subsequent ballad scholarship of the twentieth century perpetuated the antiquarian notion of a specifically female ballad tradition, and yet it has remained unclear whether and how this women's tradition should be considered distinct from, for example, a male ballad tradition. This study suggests that a quantitative approach can be used to investigate the question of difference in women's and men's ballad repertoires in the period spanning the mid‐eighteenth century to the close of the nineteenth. Employing Linguistic Inquiry Word Count (LIWC) software to examine the definitive ballad anthology—the Child collection—this study finds that the notion of a woman's tradition goes beyond stereotypical notions of repertoires gendered by genre; women's ballads are instead found to be characterised by distinctive linguistic patterns that convey a strong focus on female subjectivity.

Þrymskviða, Þrymlur, and Tord af Havsgaard—a Case of Early Antiquarianism?

<i>Þrymskviða</i>, <i>Þrymlur</i>, and <i>Tord af Havsgaard</i>—a Case of Early Antiquarianism?

The Broadside Ballad in Early Modern England: Moving Media, Tactical Publics

The Broadside Ballad in Early Modern England: Moving Media, Tactical Publics

조선초기 시가류에 나타난 역사지리인식

In the early Joseon Dynasty, the three generations of Kwon Keun, Kwon Do, and Kwan Lam, who were in charge of the official sentences of the country, compiled the books such as Ungjesi, Yeogdaesenyeonga, Yongbieocheonga, Ungjesiju, which wrote history in the form of poetry.&#x0D; Kwon Keun showed the historical orthodoxy leading to Samhan, the Three Kingdoms, and Koryo after the Dangun and Kija and also tried to inform the necessity of the establishment of the Joseon Dynasty. He thought that Samhan led to the Three Kingdoms and the Kija led to Mahan, and he is pointing to the Taedong River as the land of the Kija.&#x0D; Kwon Do's view of the place name of the past in the Korean peninsula is getting stronger, but the early Goguryeo is rather confirmed in the land of Liaodong. This tendency continues in Yongbieocheonga. In Yongbieocheonga, most of the place names appearing in the process of establishing Goguryeo are confirmed in the Korean peninsula, and Balhae is connected with Malgal. Centralism on the Korean Peninsula is strengthening in Yongbieocheonga.&#x0D; Kwon Lam's book, in the Ungjesiju, the confidence of Joseon in the stabilization period is reflected, and the record of the uprising with China is recorded in detail. And it shows great interest in the Liaodong area, including the early designation of Hyendo and Goguryeo. The territorial awareness shown here contributes to the establishment of the territorial view that historians of the late Joseon Dynasty had.&#x0D; Therefore, the recognition of historical geography in the traditional ballad books of the early period of Joseon can be said to have played an important role in establishing the territorial view in the early and late Joseon Dynasty.

Fusions of Folk, Rock and Metal: Týr’s “Modern Versions” of Faroese Ballads1

The article discusses fusions of folk and rock music with regard to the pagan / progressive metal band Týr and their relation to traditional Faroese ballads. An overview depicts diverse relationships to traditional music in general and to ballads in particular in Týr’s musical output up to their Valkyrja album (2013). An empirical analysis focuses on how said fusion is reflected in the melody, text, riffs and rhythm of Týr’s version of “Regin smiður” (Regin Blacksmith). The final section discusses the relation of traditional ballads and the sentimental rock ballad in the track “The Lay of Our Love” (2013), allowing for a sociocultural embedding of the two distinct types of rock ballad.

Transformation or Conformation? The English Broadside Ballad and the Playhouse, 1797–1844

ABSTRACT This article considers the migration of theatre music into the English broadside ballad tradition from 1797 to 1844, the most prolific era of the broadside during which the fierce professional competitors John Pitts (active 1797–1844) and James Catnach (active 1813–41) operated their presses in the Seven Dials, near London’s patent theatres. The discussion is based on the findings of a database that was constructed systematically to cross-reference 520 theatrical works from the London stage with 11,432 broadside songs of this period from the Bodleian Library’s broadside collections. By considering the scale and mechanism of the migration of theatre music into the broadside tradition—as well as examining the characteristics of the songs themselves—this article explores the effects of theatre music on nineteenth-century street literature and song, evaluating the ways in which theatre songs transformed the broadside tradition, and the ways in which they conformed to it.

Cajun Music: A Reflection of a People. Volume II

Cajun Music: A Reflection of a People. Volume II

Virtual Citizenship and Revolutionary Transatlantic Republicanism in the Musical Lives of Exiled United Irishmen

Virtual Citizenship and Revolutionary Transatlantic Republicanism in the Musical Lives of Exiled United Irishmen

Wacław Aleksander Maciejowski as a Comparatist: His Supplements to Frédéric Gustav Eichhoff’s The Literature of Medieval Peoples: Slavs and Germans

The dissertation Obraz literatury średniowiekowych ludów, a mianowicie Słowian i Niemców [The Literature of Medieval Peoples: Slavs and Germans] was published in Warsaw in 1856. It was a translation of a study by the French philologist and comparatist Frédéric Gustave Eichhoff. The original text was signifi cantly modifi ed and supplemented by Wacław Aleksander Maciejowski, a Polish historian of law and specialist on Slavic culture. The article identifi es the parts of the text that Maciejowski added, as this allows for a reconstruction of his general views on Slavic poetry, including the differences between folk ballad traditions of the Slavic nations, as well as between Slavic and Western European folk ballads (primarily Germany). Maciejowski’s views on the development of the literatures of various European nations by the mid-nineteenth century have also been discussed.

Födslar, blöjor och barnamord

The topic of this article is different singers' negotiation of certain narrative motifs in Scandinavian traditional ballads, motifs depicting feminine life experiences such as pregnancy and childbirth. These narrative motifs are abundant in the songs but more or less invisible in the ballad titles and categories created by collectors and scholars since the early 19th century. Such feminine experiences, connected to hierarchy, patriarchy, sexuality and violence, are examples of elements of content that become visible when we focus on narrative motifs across the constructed ballad types. In a wider perspective, this discussion problematizes, from a gender power perspective, the categorization of cultural heritage, the formation of canon and the stubbornness of paradigms.

Violence as Control, Revenge, or Defense

This article analyses the universe of the traditional ballad from a perspective that problematizes gender power relations and masculinity. This universe is generally characterised by masculine domination, separation of male and female spheres, and manifest structures of power. Masculine violence, not least sexual violence, tends to be normative, especially in heroic ballads and ballads of chivalry, although other masculinities also exist. Feminine power is usually circumscribed, and feminine violence is accepted only under certain conditions. Several narrative motifs concerning masculinity, femininity, violence and power structures can be traced across different ballad types. The author analyses some of these motifs, and clusters of motifs, using the methods of re-reading, close reading and cross-reading. Examples are taken from the Scandinavian and English-Scottish ballad corpora.

A Ballad and a Movie: Scandinavian TSB B21 and Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring

A Ballad and a Movie: Scandinavian TSB B21 and Ingmar Bergman's <i>The Virgin Spring</i>

‘A Different World’: Dorothy K. Haynes's Domestic Horror

Throughout Dorothy K. Haynes's work Scotland is presented as uniquely infused with the supernatural and tied to the ballad tradition. Although Haynes published widely in the middle decades of the twentieth century, and her work was republished in two ‘best of’ collections in 1981 and 1996, her stories remain underexamined. At her best, Haynes might be thought of as Scotland's answer to Shirley Jackson; her work is characterised by a prevailing sardonic humour and matter-of-fact approach to supernatural events. Haynes, however, approaches her Scottish setting in two very distinct ways. In her historical stories, often centring on witch trials, the physical landscape is richly described, and at times appears to have a haunting agency of its own. Her stories with contemporary settings, on the contrary, focus primarily on domestic interiors. In many of these stories, such as ‘Double Summer Time’, ‘The Nest’, and ‘The Wink’, the natural world is an intrusive, disruptive force. Examining such stories alongside more famous tales of the everyday supernatural, including ‘The Peculiar Case of Mrs Grimmond’, reveals the complexity of Haynes's approach to the supernatural, which challenges oppositions between familiar and unfamiliar, natural and supernatural and interior and exterior. Haynes's work reshapes the Scottish environment to show the instability of modern life, and the prevalence of older forms of storytelling and enmeshment in the natural world.

Rereading of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner as an allegorical poem, a ballad with Ecocritical touch

In recent times many critics view Samuel Taylor Coleridge epoch-making work ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ from many different perspectives. This paper mainly tends to unify all major perspectives of critics in one single reading. 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' as a supernatural poem, a lyrical ballad, a Christian allegory of sin, sufferings and exploitation leading to spiritual elimination along with ecocritical conscious with which ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ recently associated by the Eco critics and environmentalist. Within the structural framework of seven parts, the poem is formally designed as a romantic lyrical ballad in which the basic ingredients of medieval gothic ballad tradition are satisfactory found how an adventurous journey change into a journey of sin and how the mariner harm the natural world and how he realises his sin and bent before God for forgiveness. The main motto of this paper is to discuss the above mention aspects of the poem which can give a new light to the poem as well as to bring forth the poetic genius of Coleridge.

Mourning sickness: the musical birth of ‘Barbara Allen’

Abstract In his encyclopaedic 1966 study, The British broadside ballad and its music, Claude Simpson regretted the absence of tune directions for ‘such familiar traditional ballads as “Barbara Allen”’. Indeed, although it is by far the most collected traditional song in England, Scotland, Ireland and North America, and versions of its lyric date back to the 17th century, the tune most people know for ‘Barbara Allen’ was not notated until 1840. Using both verbal and melodic parallels from an earlier complex of ballads and tunes, this study proposes that ‘Barbara Allen’ had its origins in the early 17th century, if not the late 16th century, and that it was originally sung to one or more of three surviving tunes entitled ‘Sick, sick and very sick’. One of those is then linked to a 1740 tune called ‘Barbra Allan’, the earliest surviving melody to bear the name.