Текст Лекции (изначальный) (1157953), страница 11
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Itwas first of all a song sung to the rhythmic movement of a dancing chorus. The ballad belongs tothe class of productions in verse known by the name of Volks-lieder. It sprang from the bosomof the people. It was composed by one of the people for the pleasure of the people. Perhaps thatwhich now remains of this class of literature once had a particular shape that is now lost. In anycase, the incidents of many of the ballad stories, the poetic images, and even the dramaticmanner are frequently common to different countries. Of the classes of ballad thus generallydiffused there are five main classes: (1) Ballads of the supernatural, including those of a ghostly character and those based on a beliefin fairies and fairyland.(2) Romantic ballads, dealing with the familiar events of life - of love, tragic death, etc.(3) Ballads of adventure.
Under this class come several of the Border ballads and those relatingto Robin Hood.(4) Humorous ballads, usually the rendering into verse of some pointed popular jest.(5) Nursery ballads, including lullabies.The ballad, even in later times, appears to have been occasionally sung as well as said.Some pieces are made up of prose in addition to verse; the dialogue and the purely lyrical partsare in metre, while the narrative is mainly given in prose. Examples of this are found both inFrance and Scotland.
There is no precise date as to the age of extant ballad literature. English andScottish ballads, however, which can be traced to the fourteenth century, are probably the earliestof surviving forms of note.The purely English ballads, though not lacking in spirit and humour, are oftencommonplace in style. Mr. Andrew Lang (Ward's English Poets) has put forward as anexplanation of this that the English ballads as we have them have lost their original character asVolks-lieder.
The transcriber, he maintains, has cut down the material to his hand, till thedullness of prose only was left. It is probably the case, however, that they are there in almosttheir first shape, though why they should fall so markedly below those of the North in merit it issomewhat difficult to argue. It has been ascribed to climatic influences. English scenery, it isalleged, is comparatively uninspiring; and hence, English popular verse lacks the imagination,the fire, and speed that distinguish the like productions in the North. Still there are exceptions, itmust be said, to this in England; there are a few early English ballads of undoubted literaryvalue.One remarkable feature of the old ballad consists in its half curious, half familiartreatment of the supernatural.
There is exhibited a peculiar mysticism, sometimes weird,sometimes playful.In Clerk Saunders, Sir Roland, and in some ballads we have the same striking presentationof the unseen. Nothing again can be more delightful than the pictures of Fairyland that meet usevery now and then in ballad poetry. In Tamlane, and in the stories of Thomas the Rhymer and.their Scandinavian variants this is charmingly limned. We see its elfin beauty in the brightness ofthe queen of Faery, in the "bonny road that winds about the fernie brae," and in various otherpicturesque touches.
These ballads no doubt truly reflect in their solemnity and gaiety ofsentiment the imaginative beliefs of the people in that idyllic world in which the minstrel livedand moved.The ballads of a romantic caste are mostly concerned with strange and touching incidentsof love and war. Pathos and joy naturally divide their claims in the subject matter. At one time,as in Love Gregor, the bride is sacrificed to the hate of a mother.
Again, as in the Gay Gosshawk,the wit of the lovers overcomes every obstacle. Family feuds are frequently the occasion of atelling episode, as in Barthram's Dirge, the Three Ravens, and other pieces equally grave andimpressive. The most prominent examples of ballads of adventure are the riding ballads of theScottish border, and those that deal with Robin Hood. Of the former collection there are brilliantinstances in Jamie Telfer and Kinmont Willie, passages in both of which have beenauthoritatively characterised as Homeric in dramatic vividness. Mr. Lang describes the balladsabout Robin Hood as "exceedingly English, long and dull." This, however, must be acceptedwith a considerable qualification.
The humorous ballads in various countries are often marked byclever and free play of fancy. Perhaps the best belong to Germany and Scotland.The time that produced the ballad was wholly before the diffusion of books: with theprinting press the office of the minstrel disappeared. This poetical form nevertheless has beencultivated with success in later times, especially in England and Germany. The disuse of theolder dialect in Scotland has greatly hindered further accomplishment in the art in that country,though Scott and Allan Cunningham composed ballads of distinct merit in somewhat closeimitation of the early examples.
In England last century a like attempt was made, only, however,to incur ridicule, as in Johnson's famous parody. But in recent times ballads of a distinctivelypowerful kind have been written by Coleridge, Rossetti, and Tennyson. In Germany the art of theminnesinger has been splendidly maintained by Burger, Schiller, Goethe, and Uhland.The history of ballad-collecting is a matter of some interest. Such pieces, at least inEngland, were first printed on broadsheets and sold by pedlars. About the time of the Restorationthese broadsheets were gathered by collectors as curios; Lord Dorset, Dryden, and Pepys wereamong such antiquarians. Reprints of any note were first undertaken in the south by Tom Durfey,in the north by Allan Ramsay.
Bishop Percy, however, made the great step in this direction bythe publication of his Reliques, which was based on old copies of ballads in a folio MS. that hadcome into his hands. In Scotland Herd published what had been called the first useful collectionfrom oral tradition in 1769. Scott, in his Border Minstrelsy, continued to a considerable extentthe work of Herd. Motherwell's collection (1827) is marked by critical care. A recent importantaddition to the series of ballad texts is that of Messrs. Furnivall and Hales (London, 1867-8, 3vols.).
This is taken from the folio MS. of Percy. Critics agree in placing first among recentcollections in interest and scholarship that of Professor Child (English and Scottish Ballads,Boston, U.S., 1864). Other valuable books on the subject are those of Ritson, Kinloch, Jamieson,Sharpe, Aytoun, and Allingham. The old ballads are a very valuable part of poetical literature.Though composed in a rude era, they were the work of men of true artistic genius; the themes,moreover, touch on almost all the chords of human experience.
They contain, and vividly setforth in their own way, the elements of the deepest tragedy or gayest comedy. The period of theirproduction would also seem to be in their favour as compositions to be enjoyed by later ages.The spring-time of history that gave them light has lent them a delightful brightness ofdelineation both in regard to nature and man. Round them, as round the work of Chaucer, wehave a poetic atmosphere full of charm, a sweetness that belongs also to the dawn and May. Thiswill always attract; but the material and style of the ballads in themselves must still securegenuine appreciation.
Broadsheet ballads (also known as broadside ballads) were cheaply printedand hawked in English streets from the sixteenth century. They were often topical, humorous,and even subversive; the legends of Robin Hood and the pranks of Puck were disseminatedthrough broadsheet not information ballads.New ballads were written about current events like fires, the birth of monstrous animals,and so forth, giving particulars of names and places. Satirical ballads and Royalist balladscontributed to 17th century political discourse.
In a sense, these ballads were antecedents of themodern newspaper.Thomas Percy, Robert Harley, Francis James Child, Sir Walter Scott and James Hoggwere early collectors and publishers of ballads from the oral tradition, broadsheets and previousanthologies. Percy's publication of Reliques of Ancient Poetry and Harley's collections, such asThe Bagford Ballads, were of great import in beginning the study of ballads.
The Child Balladsare a collection of 305 ballads from England and Scotland, and their American variants,collected by Francis James Child in the late 19th century. The collection was published as TheEnglish and Scottish Popular Ballads between 1882 and 1898 by Houghton Mifflin in 10volumes. The ballads vary in age; for instance, a version of "A Gest of Robyn Hode" was printedin the late 15th or early 16th century, and the manuscript of "Judas" dates to the 13th century.The majority of the ballads, however, date to the 17th and 18th century; although some probablyhave very ancient influences, only a handful can be definitively traced to before 1600.
Moreover,few of the tunes collected are as old as the words. While many of them had been individuallyprinted, e.g. as broadsides, Child's collection was far more comprehensive than any previouscollection of ballads in English. (However, there were comprehensive ballad collections in otherlanguages, like the Danish collection Danmarks gamle Folkeviser, which Child referred to in hiscomments.)One Child number may cover several ballads, which Child considered variants of thesame story, although they may differ in many ways (as in "James Hatley").
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