The Anglo-American Ballad

Originally published in 1995. This book's collection of key essays presents a coherent overview of issues in the study of Anglo-American popular ballad traditions, chronologically including scholars whose views mark pivotal moments and each selected piece is pre-empted by an introductory section on its importance and relevance.

Dianne Dugaw

Preface. Introduction 1. Popular Songs and the Image of a Nation: The Spectator Papers on Ballads (Numbers 70 and 85) (1711) Joseph Addison 2. Heroic Ballads and the 'Romantic Wildness' of an Anglo-Saxon Past: On Ancient Minstrels (1794) Thomas Percy 3. Countering Mythic Claims: The Origin and Progress of National Song (1783) Joseph Ritson 4. Balladry as a Childhood for National Genius: Popular Poetry (1830) Walter Scott 5. The Concept of Orality and the Collector of 'Tradition': Minstrelsy Ancient and Modern (1827) William Motherwell 6. The Ballad Community as an Egalitarian, Pastoral Ideal: Ballad Poetry (1875) Francis James Child 7. Orality, Primitivism, and an Improvising Folk Community: The Ballad and Communal Poetry (1897) Francis B. Gunmere 8. Real Singers, Individual Authorship, and Diverse Ballads: Ballads and the Illiterate (1921) Louise Pound 9. Archaism and 'Communal Re-creation' in Ballad Tunes: The Music of the Ballads (1929) Phillips Barry 10. Families of Tunes and the Tenacity of Tradition: Ballad Tunes and Texts (1944) Bertrand H. Bronson 11. Ballad Music as an Heirloom of British Culture: Principal Melodic Families of British-American Folk Song (1950) Samuel P. Bayard 12. Variation and Continuity in Ballads Present and Past: The Comparative Approach (1986) D. K. Wilgus 13. Class Politics and the Producers and Production of Songs: Song and Social Context (1986) Michael Pickering 14. Orality and the Formulaic Composition of Ballads: Oral Tradition and Literary Tradition (1977) David Buchan 15. Creativity, Community, and the Individual Songmaker: My Name is Larry Gorman (1964) Edward Ives 16. People and Their Songs as Diverse Phenomena: Ballad Singers, Ballad Makers, and Ballad Etiology (1973) Eleanor R. Long 17. Tradition, Literacy, and the Ballad Marketplace: The Interface of Oral and Written Forms (1984) Dianne Dugaw 18. Performance, Audience, Social Conditions, and Tradition: The Rise of the English Street Ballad (1990) Natascha Wurzbach 19. Blues Ballads and the Syncretism of Anglo and African Traditions: Survivors of the Ballad Tradition (1984) Paul Oliver