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Ballad, Tale, and Tradition: A Study in Popular Literary Origins

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Arthur Beatty
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Extract

To anyone who has followed the development of the theory of ballad origins, it is well known that there are two main theories in the field for our suffrages at the present time: the communal; and the individualistic, literary, or anti-communal theory. The last name of the second theory is indicative of the attitude of its upholders, for they have in truth been largely occupied with a criticism of the communalists, always demanding of them more and ever more light, and ever, like doubting Thomas, refusing to believe until an actual ballad dating from at least the time of Hereward the Wake is produced for their fingers to touch. The communalists, by an appeal to the well-established facts of folk-lore and ethnology, maintain that the ballads are the product of the communal stage of society in Europe, in which the populace held festive dances, and in which there was actual improvisation of certain traditional lyric narratives. These narratives had their verse-form determined by the dance; and the whole poem from beginning to end was the product of the people, and was not in any way composed by literary persons. Moreover, these ballads have been handed down by oral tradition, and live in the mouths of the people. Of course, there is no claim that one expects to find in the ballads of the collections anything which springs directly from the ancient source; all that is claimed is that the poetic form is handed down, and, so to say, the general ballad tradition. This claim of long descent is substantiated by the very features of the ballads as they exist to-day; by their impersonality, their refrain, their depicting of but a single situation, their use of incremental repetition. Thus, it is maintained, the ballad is not derived from any pre-existing literary material, but is the result of a primary impulse which is as old as man, and out of which the various forms of communal poetry spring. Finally, the ballad is not connected with the popular tale; “it follows an entirely different line and springs from an entirely different impulse.”

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 29 , Issue 4 , 1914 , pp. 473 - 498
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1914

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References

1 F. B. Gummere, The Popular Ballad, 1907, pp. 16-61, 68-71. George Lyman Kittredge, Introduction to the Cambridge Edition of Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads, 1904.

2 T. H. Henderson, Preface to his edition of Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, pp. xxiii-xxiv.

3 J. H. Millar, Literary History of Scotland, 1903, p. 182.

4 J. H. Millar, Literary History of Scotland, 1903, p. 182.

5 2 vols., 1886.

6 The Popular Ballad, pp. 69-70.

7 F. J. Child, English and Scottish Popular Ballads, No. 10.

8 Full evidence can be gained from the chief studies of The Twa Sisters and allied themes: J. and W. Grimm, Kinder- und Hausmärchen, 1812-1814. No. 28, “Der Singende Knochen,” Notes. With notes, 1882, in a third volume; J. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, 1835, Vol. iii, pp. 689-690. Fourth edition. Ed. Meyer, 1878. Eng. trans. Stallybrass, 1882-1888; A. Koberstein, Über die Vorstellung von dem Fortleben menschlicher Seelen in der Pflanzenwelt, Naumburg, 1849, also in Weimarisches Jahrbuch, i, pp. 72-100 (Rose and Briar); Reinhold Köhler, Notes to No. 51, Der Singende Dudelsack of Laura Gonzenbach: Sicilianische Märchen, 1870; Reinhold Köhler, Weimarisches Jahrbuch, I, pp. 479-483; Reinhold Köhler, Herrigs Archiv j. d. Stud. der n. Sprachen, xvii, p. 444; Reinhard Köhler, Sitzungsberichte der Wiener Akademie, xx, p. 94, 1856; E. Grohmann, Aberglaube aus Böhmen, pp. 193, 1301, 93, 648; E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, First ed. 1871, 2nd, 1872; W. Mannhardt, Wald- und Feld-Kulte, 1874. I. Baumkultus, pp. 3, 39-44; II. Antike Wald- und Feld-Kulte, pp. 10-14, 20-23, 61-62, 280; F. J. Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. 1st Ed., 1860 (very little), New Ed. 1882. No. 10, Introductory study; R. Köhler, Aufsatze über Märchen und Volkslieder, 1882, “Die Sprechende Harfe,” pp. 79 ff.; H. Gaidoz, Mélusine, Vol. iv. Cols. 61-62, 85-91, 142; 1. 882, “Les deux Arbres Entrelacés”; Emmanuel Cosquin, Contes de Lorraine, i, pp. lix-lxii, 1886; J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough, Third Ed., Part I, Vol. ii, 1911, passim; Eugène Monseur, L ‘Os qui Chante, Bulletin de Folklore Wallon, i, pp. 89 ff., 1891-2; Grant Allen, The Attis of Catullus, 1892, pp. 17-125, Excursus ii; Charles Ploix, L ‘Os qui Chante, Revue des Traditions Populates, viii, pp. 129 ff., 1893; E. Sidney Hartland, The Legend of Perseus, 1894-6, i, pp. 182-224; Léon Pineau, Les Yieux Chants Populates Scandinaves, Vol. i, 1898; J. A. Macculloch, The Childhood of Fiction, 1905, Chap. iv, pp. 80-117; Paul Sébillot, Le Folk-Lore de France, Vol. iii, sect. 1-9; E. S. Hartland, Primitive Paternity (Transformation and Metempsychosis), 2 vols., 1909-10, Chap. iii; Arnold van Gennep, Les Rites de Passage, 1909, Chap. vi, Les Rites d'Initiation; J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough, Third Edition, Part VII, Vol. ii, Chaps. x-xii, 1913 (A very complete study of the external soul in folk-tale and folk custom and of totemism).

9 Typical forms of the story are: For the ballads, Child, Nos. 15 and 272, with the introductions. For the tales, Europe:—J. and W. Grimm, Kinder- und Haus-Märchen, 1812-1814, with notes, 1824 (No. 97); J. G. von Hahn, Griechische und Albanesische Märchen, 1864 (Nos. 22, 32, 37); Asbjörnsen und Moë, Norse Tales (No. 35); G. W. Dasent, Popular Tales from the North, 1859 (No. 3); W. R. S. Ralston, Russian Folk Tales, 1873 (The Fiend, p. 17, also Chap. IV); J. F. Campbell, Popular Tales of the West Highlands, 1860-1862 (Conall Gulban, iii, p. 66); Lady Charlotte Guest, The Mabinogion, p. 39 (Branwen, the Daughter of Llyr); Emmanuel Cosquin, Contes de Lorraine, 1886 (Appendice B. p. lx, and No. 17, L'Oiseau de Vérité); Child, English and Scottish Popular Ballads (Notes to No. 15, Leesome Brand; No. 272, Suffolk Miracle). Other Countries:—F. A. von Schiefner, Thibetan Tales, 1882, p. lxi; R. H. Nassau, Fetishism in West Africa, 1904, pp. 372-378.

10 Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters, Vol. xv, Pt. ii, pp. 273-324.

11 General treatises on the story are:—

W. A. Clouston, Popular Tales and Fictions, 1887, Vol. ii, pp. 407-412, 497-499; J. G. Frazer, Adonis, Attis, and Osiris, 1906; Paul Sébillot, Le Folk-Lore de France, Vol. ii, 1905 (La mer et les eaux douces); W. Mannhardt, Wald- und Feld-Kulte, 1874; Reinhold Köhler, Kleinere Schriften, Vol. i, pp. 55, 185, 562, 367, 394, 581; J. A. Macculloch, The Childhood of Fiction, 1905. Chaps. iii, iv, and v (The work contains references to a great number of tales); Jane Harrison, Themis, 1912; Ancient Art and Ritual, 1913; H. Dawkins, “The Modern Carnival in Greece,” Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. xxvi, 1906, p. 191 (On the dramatic treatment of this motif).

12 The collections used were as follows: For England, E. S. Hartland, English Fairy and Other Folk Tales, 1908; Joseph Jacobs, English Fairy Tales, 1904; More English Fairy Tales, 1894. For Scotland: J. F. Campbell, Popular Tales of the West Highlands, 1890. For France: Emmanuel Cosquin, Contes Populaires de Lorraine, 1885.

13 Robertson Smith, The Religion of the Semites, 1889; Franz Boas, On the Kwakiutl Indians (Reports of the U. S. National Museum), 1895. W. Y. Evans Wentz, The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries, 1911, collects a great mass of materials which connect the tales and traditions of the Celts. One can admire the method of this book without agreeing with its theories.

14 Evolution in Art, 1895.

15 Poetics, xiv, 9.

16 Representative tales of peoples in lowly stages of culture may be found in the following:—G. M. Theal, Kaffir Folk Lore, 1882; A. L. Kroeber, “Animal Tales of the Eskimo,” in Journal of American Folk-Lore, xii, p. 17; Charles Hill-Tout, “Sqaktkquaclt, or the Benign-Faced,” Folk Lore, x, p. 195. These give materials for a judgment on such savage tales and their very rudimentary idea of a plot. Their structure and length has been best explained by Mr. Theal:—“There is a peculiarity in many of these stories which makes them capable of almost indefinite expansion. They are so constructed that parts of one can be made to fit into parts of the other, so as to form a new tale. In this respect they are like the blocks of wood in the form of cubes with which European children amuse themselves. Combined in one way they represent the picture of a lion, another combination shows a map of Europe, another still, a view of St. Paul's, and so on. So, with many of these tales. They are made up of fragments which are capable of a variety of combinations” (Op. cit., p. vii).

See also Dozon, Oontes Albanais, xvi; Andrew Lang, International Folk Lore Congress, 1891, p. 65; Macculloch, Childhood of Fiction, p. 467, and H. A. Junod, Life of a South African Tribe, 2 vols., 1913, vol. ii, pp. 191-248. The introductory matter and the tales given in this work are of primary importance.

17 Richard Wallaschek, Primitive Music, 1893; Ernst Grosse, The Beginnings of Art, 1894, Eng. translation, 1897; Karl Bücher, Arbeit und Rhythmus, 3rd Ed., 1909; Yrjö Hirn, The Origins of Art, 1900; F. B. Gummere, The Beginnings of Poetry, 1901.

18 For instance, J. H. Millar, Literary History of Scotland, 1903, p. 82; W. J. Courthope, History of English Poetry, Vol. i, 1895.

19 Literary History of Scotland, 1903.

20 Les Fonctions Mentales dans les Sociétés Inférieures, 1910. Important papers of Émile Durkheim are to be found in the volumes of L'Année Sociologique, ii, 1898, and in La Revue de Métaphysique et Morale, vi, 1898; xvii, 1909.

21 Henri Junod, Life of a South African Tribe, 2 vols., 1913.

22 The People of the Polar North, 1909, p. 97.

23 See my paper, The St. George or Mummers' Play, in Transactions of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters, Vol. xv, 1907.

24 Folkesanger paa Faer⊘erne, 1906.

25 Thuren, op. oit., pp. 44-51.

26 Axel Olrik, Danshe Folkeviser i Udvalg, New Ed., 1913. Danske Studier, 1906, pp. 175 ff.; Johannes Steenstrup, Vore Folkeviser, 1891. Translated by E. G. Cox, with title The Medieval Popular Ballad, 1914; Sofus Larsen, Tilskueren, Nov., 1903; Ernst von der Eecke, Nogle Folkeviseredaktioner, 1906; W. P. Ker, On the History of the Ballads, 1909, Danish Ballads, in Scottish Historical Review, July, 1904, July, 1908; A. Jeanroy, Origines de la Poésie Lyrique en France, 1889.

27 Ferdinand Wolf, Über die Lais, 1841.

28 R. Meyer, J. Bédier, P. Aubry. La Chanson de Bele Aëlis, par le trouvère Baude de la Quarière, 1906.

29 Sophus Bugge, The Home of the Eddic Poems, trans. by W. H. Schofield, 1899.

30 Gaston Paris, Journal des Savants, Sept.-Nov., 1889.

31 Ernst von der Recke, Nogle Folkeviseredaktioner, 1906.

32 Axel Olrik, Danske Studier, 1906, pp. 80 and 175; 1907, p. 79.

33 For the refrain in Danish Ballads, see Steenstrup, Vore Folkeviser, Chap. iv, and for English see Gummere, The Popular Ballad, pp. 73-74.

34 Child, No. 1.

35 H. Junod, op. cit., ii, pp. 160-160.

36 See Friedrich von der Leyen, Das Märchen, 1913, for the development of the European popular tale. Adolf Thimme, Das Märchen, 1912, has a bibliography.

37 L'Anthropologie, Vol. xv, with reproductions of the pictures. See also succeeding volumes for palæolithic materials. Robert Munro, Palæolithic Man, 1912, and Lord Avebury, Prehistoric Times, 1913, have good selections from L'Anthropologie.

38 Friedrich Panzer, Hilde-Gudrun, 1901; Studien zur Germanischen Sagengeschichte, Vol. i (Beowulf), 1910. (Valuable folk-tale bibliographies in both volumes.)

39 H. M. Chadwick, The Heroic Age, 1907.

40 O. Dähnhardt, Natursagen, 4 vols., 1907-1913.

41 Carl Bücher, Arbeit und Rhythmus, 3rd ed., 1909.

42 Alfred C. Haddon, Evolution in Art, 1907.

43 Count Nigra, Canti Popolari del Piemonte, 1888. Mila y Fontanals, De la Poesia heróico-popular Castellana, 1874. Menéndez y Pelayo, Tratado de los Romances viejos, 2 vols., 1903-6.