The English Traditional Ballad

Ballads are a fascinating subject of study not least because of their endless variety. It is quite remarkable that ballads taken down or recorded from singers separated by centuries in time and by hundreds of kilometres in distance, should be both different and yet recognizably the same. In The English Traditional Ballad, David Atkinson examines the ways in which the body of ballads known in England make reference both to ballads from elsewhere and to other English folk songs. The book outlines current theoretical directions in ballad scholarship: structuralism, traditional referentiality, genre and context, print and oral transmission, and the theory of tradition and revival. These are combined to offer readers a method of approaching the central issue in ballad studies - the creation of meaning(s) out of ballad texts. Atkinson focuses on some of the most interesting problems in ballad studies: the 'wit-combat' in versions of The Unquiet Grave; variable perspectives in comic ballads about marriage; incest as a ballad theme; problems of feminine motivation in ballads like The Outlandish Knight and The Broomfield Hill; murder ballads and murder in other instances of early popular literature. Through discussion of these issues and themes in ballad texts, the book outlines a way of tracing tradition(s) in English balladry, while recognizing that ballad tradition is far from being simply chronological and linear.

David Atkinson has published widely on ballads in scholarly journals and conference proceedings. For the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library he has catalogued the Maud Karpeles manuscript collection, and compiled an introductory bibliography and discography of English folk song (which is available online). He is a member of the editorial board of Folk Music Journal, and secretary/editor of the Kommission fÃ-r Volksdichtung (International Ballad Commission). His central research interests are in ballads and folk songs, extending into theories of tradition and revival. He is currently part of a team working on the James Madison Carpenter Collection of folk song and music, drama, and speech, based at the National Centre for English Cultural Tradition, University of Sheffield.

Contents: Preface; General editor's preface; Introduction: accessing ballad tradition; The lover's tasks in 'The Unquiet Grave'; Comic ballads and married life; Incest and 'Edward'; Motivation, gender, and talking birds; Magical corpses; and the discovery of murder; An English ballad tradition?; Bibliography; Discography; Index of ballads and songs; General index.