Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1921 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER II THE MEDIAEVAL BALLAD AND THE DANCE If the ballad, whether defined as dance song or as narrative lyric, is not the archetypal poetic form, preserving the model of primitive song, if it did not originate, more specifically than other lyric verse, in the festal dance songs of primitive peoples, is it not, at least, to be associated with the dances or the dance songs of the Middle Ages? Such association is customary. The primary definition of the English ballad, in English dictionaries of the nineteenth century, is "dance song." The etymology of the name makes linkage of the ballad with the dances of mediaeval times practically inevitable. A few quotations will make clear the present state of opinion. The leading American writer on ballads in recent times, Professor E. J. Gummere, affirmed, "But there is neither hurry nor compact narrative in the real ballad, so named not because it was sung at a dance but because it was a dance, a dramatic situation, unchanged in bulk and plan, but shifting its parts in tune with these until a climax is attained." 1 According to Professor G. L. Kittredge, "It appears that there is no lack of characteristic traits... which justify the conjecture that the history of balladry, if we could follow it back in a straight line without interruptions would lead us.to a very simple condition of iDemocracy and Poetry (1911), p. 191. society, to the singing and dancing throng, to a period of communal composition." 2 Professor Henry Beers wrote, "It should never be forgotten that the ballad... was not originally a written poem but a song and dance." 3 More qualification characterizes the words of Professor Charles S. Baldwin, " They the ballads may have been originally dance songs with communal refrain...".