Bibliography
BALLAD COLLECTIONS:
Child, Francis James. The Enlish and Scottish Popular Ballads.
Pub. Houghton Mifflin and Company, c. 1882-98
The collection of ballads. It runs five volumes, with many
versions of the same ballad and extensive annotations. It's really
something. If you're looking for a ballad, it's unlikely it won't be in
Child. You'll also find a list of commonly used phrases and motifs in the
last book.
Housman, John E. British Popular Ballads. George G. Harrap &
Co., c. 1952
A good, basic collection of the most popular ballads, including Tam
Lin, Barbara Allen, The Wife of Usher's Well, and other commonly known
ones. It includes a glossary of unusual scottish terms used in the
ballads. The introduction is worth reading.
Quiller-Couch, Arthur. The Oxford Book of Ballads. Clarendon
Press, 1920.
A thorough collection of many ballads, both period and non. The
latest edition contains tunes (yay!) for some of the ballads. It's as
good a reference as you'll find in one book.
BOOKS ABOUT BALLADS:
Hodgart, MJC, The Ballads, Hutchinson & Co., Ltd, c. 1962.
A wonderful introduction to the ballad form--has information on the
style, rhythm, metre and motifs used in ballads. In addition, it
addresses the music found in ballad songs as well as the lyrics.
Wimberly, Lowry C., Folklore in the English and Scottish
Ballads,Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., c. 1959
An entertaining read, this book goes into detail about how ghosts, faeries
and elves, enchantment, shapechanging, witches and the otherworld are used
in ballads.
Gummere, Francis B., The Popular Ballad. Dover Publications,
Inc., c. 1959.
If you can plow through all of the circumlocution and epistolary talk,
there's some very excellent information in this book about the history,
style and structure of ballads.
Kekalainen, Kirsti, Aspects of Style and Language in Child's
Collection of English and Scottish Popular Ballads.Suomalainen
Tiedeakatemia, c. 1908
For the nitty gritty details about syntax, phrase structure, and modes of
address used in ballads, this is the place to go. That is, if you can put
up with sentences such as: "So, though no favourite intensifier in Middle
English is the predominant one with predicative adjectives since the early
seventeenth century onwards..." (This woman has got to be Finnish).
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