The Folk Ballad as a Genre

Résumé du livre

This study of the English and Scottish popular ballads attempts to show how and why the ballad may be called a collective genre. Chapter One introduces the ballad by discussing its place in the history of English literature. Chapter Two analyses the "communal" theory of ballad, origins, the most uncompromisingly "popular" thesis. Chapter Three tempers the communalists with other theories of origins, mostly "unpopular." The fourth chapter goes on to show that, origins aside, the ballad is made a collective thing by oral transmission. With some kind of collectivity established Chapter Five investigates a possible ballad-ritual connection. Chapter Six shows that the group, not the individual "artist" is responsible for the poetry of the ballads. This thesis holds that there are very few areas of balladry which are not illuminated by the collective, or popular, theory; and specifically that the particular contribution made to literature by the ballads is governed by their "popularity."