Singers and Storytellers Page: 32
v, 298 p. ; 24 cm.View a full description of this book.
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SINGERS AND STORYTELLERS
man, Miss Clarke's Study of Jamaica, Reginald Nettel's Sing a
Song of England, Anderson's study of Australia, seem to be
based on the assumption that folksongs are largely valuable as
socio-historical documents and of little importance otherwise;
that they should be studied solely for the light they throw on
the culture of the time. A paper at a recent meeting of the
American Folklore Society took scholars to task for using
intrinsic worth rather than social value as a criterion for ballad
selection. One wonders if such a point of view may not be
based on the unexpressed or even unrecognized feeling still
lingering on that the ballad is a folk communal product and
therefore to be considered as autobiographical of a particular
folk group. Of course, no one would deny that a poem or song
is a part of its creator's society and that it may owe much to
that society and may even give information about that society;
yet this is, I think, of minor importance, and oftentimes may be
misleading. A work of art-and the ballad is primarily a work
of art-is a product of selection and of creative imagination;
it is a synthesis of old and new in subject, thought, and emotion.
Ballads especially are untrustworthy as indexes of culture
and consequently must be used with caution for the reason,
first of all, that the ballad has no basic text. Consider, for
example, the Corpus Christi carol-ballad. We have two versions
of this song: one collected in Staffordshire in 1865, and the other
from Wessex in a manuscript of the fifteenth century.
Over yonder's a park which is newly begun
All the bells in Paradise I hear them ring
Which is silver on the outside and gold within
And I love sweet Jesus above a thing
And in that park there stands a hall
Which is covered over with purple and pall
And in that hall there stands a bed
Which is hung all around with silk curtains red.
And in that bed there lies a knight
Whose wounds they do bleed by day and by night
At that bedside there lies a stone
Which is our blessed Virgin Mary then kneeling on32
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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/m1/38/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Press.