Singers and Storytellers Page: 35
v, 298 p. ; 24 cm.View a full description of this book.
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THE SINGER OR THE SONG
socio-historical is another such extrinsic theory. Is it not time
to make an intrinsic study of the ballad? Should we not study
the ballad objectively for its own sake and as a work of art?
Oddly enough the first collectors and anthologists con-
centrated on the song rather than the singer and his culture; yet
they never carried this point of view to their critical works. The
ballad has always been praised; yet the praise has always been
uncritical and subjective. Writers all the way from Sidney,
Addison, and Goldsmith to Hardy and Yeats have voiced
extravagant appreciation of the ballad. Johnson would rather
have written "Chevy Chase," he said, than all of his work; yet
none tell why.
This essay then is a plea for an intrinsic study' not only of
the aesthetics of the ballad and folksong but of traditional
literary narrative in general-tale, myth, drama-for we have,
I think, been led astray in these categories as well. Here I can
do no more than sketch the form such a study might take, with
concentration on the ballad.
Let us begin by taking as our fundamental premise the
observation of Cecil Sharp that the ballad differs in quality
from literature of record, that literature of record is one kind
of art, folk literature another kind of art, and that we must
disabuse ourselves of the persisting idea that literature of
record is art while folk literature like the ballad is artless,
naive, accidental. We must realize that we do not have an
antithesis between art and no art, but that rather we have
art of two qualities, and that consequently the same techniques
and aesthetic criteria do not obtain for both.
The first consideration in presenting a ballad for the
appreciation of a sophisticated audience is its frame of refer-
ence, as it is, for example, with medieval romance, though for
different reasons. The sophisticate approaching folksong is
inclined to place it in his frame of reference and as a result
he finds it crude, or childish, or amusing, or quaint, or incom-
prehensible. Sensing this attitude the editor and the singer35
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Singers and Storytellers (Book)
Collection of popular folklore of Texas, including personal anecdotes about storytellers and singers, as well as folk songs, myths, and ghost stories. The index begins on page 295.
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Boatright, Mody C. Singers and Storytellers, book, 1961; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc67655/m1/41/: accessed April 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Press.