Book contents
- The Ballad-Singer in Georgian and Victorian London
- The Ballad-Singer in Georgian and Victorian London
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Musical Examples
- Recordings
- Acknowledgements
- Note on the Text
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Representations
- Interlude I
- 2 Progress
- Interlude II
- 3 Performance
- Interlude III
- 4 Repertoire
- Interlude IV
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
1 - Representations
Seeing the Singer
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2021
- The Ballad-Singer in Georgian and Victorian London
- The Ballad-Singer in Georgian and Victorian London
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Musical Examples
- Recordings
- Acknowledgements
- Note on the Text
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Representations
- Interlude I
- 2 Progress
- Interlude II
- 3 Performance
- Interlude III
- 4 Repertoire
- Interlude IV
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
My first chapter, ‘Representations: Seeing the Singer’, addresses perhaps the greatest problem to the historian of song culture, that of its sources, and in so doing serves also as a comprehensive introduction to the ballad-singer and her place in metropolitan life. It is constructed chiefly as an analysis of images of singers, supported by comparison with other media of representation, from plays to novels. I have tried to tackle head on the fact that in the historical record we see the singer almost entirely from above – and almost never hear them. Several key themes emerge: the extent to which ballad-singers were both silenced (or ventriloquised) and stripped of their crowds, thereby diminishing their potential to disturb viewers; the process of Othering whereby singers became synecdochal for an underclass within London, helping to create a domestic narrative of internal colonialism; and above all, the complex articulation of immorality in imagery. This lay less in a focus upon the female body than in the associations of the open mouth – a vulgar, sexualised trope that located vice, not in the singer’s person, but in their song.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Ballad-Singer in Georgian and Victorian London , pp. 22 - 71Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021