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The Singer and the Scribe: European Ballad Traditions and European Ballad Cultures Edited by Philip E. Bennett and Richard Firth Green. Internationale Forschungen zur Allgemeinen und Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft, 75. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2004. 223 pp. Illus. Index. ISBN 90-420-1851-8. euro48.00/US$65.00.
This is a selection of a dozen papers emerging out of a colloquium held in Edinburgh in 2000. Its declared purpose is to explore the interplay and interdependence of written and oral transmission in the development of the ballad. This is necessarily played out in a succession of discrete studies, and these vary in terms of their actual engagement with this central question and their residual commitment to the purity of 'oral tradition'. On the other hand, the very variety of material and approaches is a strength of the volume.
The short introduction by the editors is certainly very stimulating, and among other things it introduces the intriguing proposition of 'para-literate communities'. It is followed by papers such as Roderick Beatons account of Greek ballads and the (indirect) evidence for their medieval roots; Ekaterina Roeatchevskaia's explication of Russian byliny and ballads; and Manuel da Costa Fontes's study of Portuguese epic ballads. Three papers deal with Hispanic ballads: Huw Lewis's study of the Romance del Conde Arnaldos; Roger Wright on Spanish ballads in a changing world; and Margaret Sleemans study of Sephardic tradition, which moves from Iberia to St John's Wood. Ad Putter describes a late medieval Flemish ballad, Fier Margrietken, and its historical basis; and William Layher fascinatingly introduces Swedish church murals into the consideration of the origins of Scandinavian ballad stories. Philip E. Bennett asserts that songs similar to ballads did indeed exist in medieval France, in spite of scholars' attempts to define them out of existence.
All of these papers are well worth reading, but there are perhaps three that will be of most immediate interest to readers of this journal. Richard Firth Green, in 'F. J. Child and Mikhail Bakhtin', asks the question why is Bakhtin's festive laughter not present in the Child ballads (with a few exceptions, such as 'The Keach in the Creel')?...