Sound effects : The oral/aural dimensions of literature in English : Introduction

This collection derives from a conference held at the University of St. Andrews in 2006, one of an occasional series on the media in history as a context for literary interpretation.1 The aim of the conference was to extend our discussion of the literary media from printed text and script back to the most basic medium of all: speech. But we also wanted to explore points of contact between the established field of oral tradition and the emerging field of sound studies.Issue title: Sound Effects

"The Diligence of the author to know all things" : literary tradition and marginal discourse in William Baldwin's Beware the cat

William Baldwin’s Beware the Cat experiments with early modern literary genre and marks a transitional period in rhetoric and in political reform. Beware the Cat confronts issues of textual authority among a novice English readership, especially in the conversion of orality to manuscript and manuscript to print. Baldwin’s satire, while pointed towards the topic of religious reformation, parodies several of the most commonplace genres available in early modern England. Moreover, Baldwin’s integration of a highly critical marginal gloss acts to destabilize his entire narrative and ultimately alludes to the need for more discerning and educated reading practices. Currently, scholarship on Beware the Cat is limited to examining the discussion of religious reform and how the text integrates various genres of writing. My thesis explores the literary genres that Baldwin utilizes throughout the text such as broadside ballads, occult writings, and beast fables, and examines how he questions their merit in the marginal gloss. However, I also focus on the source materials that Baldwin references in his narrative and explore how he retells different plots to highlight what he views as a corrupt religious institution that shares a similar method of conversion to the occult. Further, the conversation between the host narrative and the marginal gloss serves to question the validity of texts that rely on hearsay and to undermine their authoritative strategies. I also concentrate on how the relationship between the narrative and marginal gloss exemplifies the type of critical discourse Baldwin believes is necessary to determine if a text is fallacious or supported by credible evidence

On the Politics of Folk Song Theory in Edwardian England

This article explores how and why a particular vision of folksong became widely popular during the early twentieth century. Focusing on Cecil J. Sharp, I show that despite severe criticism from contemporaries his beliefs won out as the dominant paradigm for the understanding of folk music. Interrogating the politics of his theorizing, moreover, I draw out the hitherto neglected imbrications between folk revivalism and fascist ideology. Seen as dialectical tools capable of reforming citizens through the expressive contours of their racial birthright, I argue, collected songs and dances were repurposed in the service of forging a national socialist consciousness

The World of Maritimes Folklore

Dr. Edward Sandy Ives is Professor of Folklore and Oral History in the Department of Anthropology, University of Maine (Orono), and Director of the Northeast Archives of Folklore and Oral History. He is also Editor of Northeast Folklore. One of the most distinguished and respected folklorists in the United States, and widely known in Canadian folklore circles, he was considered by his peers and by the Trustees of the Helen Creighton Foundation to be the obvious choice to give the inaugural address in the Foundation\u27s new biennial Helen Creighton Lecture Series. This Lecture was given in February 1992 at the University of King\u27s College, Halifax, N.S

Ballads, blues, and alterity

Focusing on interactions between Britain and the US in the field of popular song, this thesis explores the constitutive relationship between discourse, performance, and identity via critical and postcolonial theory. I interrogate how and why nostalgic and essentialising visions of alterity were used to resist mass consumption, global capitalism, and the changes wrought by modernity during the twentieth century. I argue that folk music does not exist outside the discourse of revivalism and is therefore best seen as an institutionalised system of knowledge animating the ‘low Other’. Chapter 1, ‘“Dancing Puppets” | Nationalism, Social Darwinism, and the Transatlantic Invention of Folksong’, uncovers moments of mediation between ‘primitive’ cultures and metropolitan elites during the early twentieth century. Employing the idea of gatekeeping, I critique a genealogy of powerful voices including Cecil J. Sharp and John A. Lomax alongside others who persistently challenged their orthodoxies. Chapter 2, ‘“His Rough, Stubborn Muse” | Industrial Balladry, Class, and the Politics of Realism’, investigates Marxist visions of working-class culture, showing how ideas of rural authenticity were translated onto urban contexts. Focusing on the BBC ‘radio ballads’, I argue that industrial folksong was a form of social realism intended as a gendered bulwark against threats posed by Americanisation and postwar affluence. Chapter 3, ‘“Found True and Unspoiled” | Blues, Performance, and the Mythology of Racial Display’, explores African American culture, showing how desires written into a revivalist gaze forced artists to assume what I term ‘black masks’ for the benefit of white male fantasy. Focusing on televised performances, I argue that the semiotics of blues events provide a way of understanding the workings of racial identity itself. I conclude by proposing that what I term the ‘folkloric imagination’ is a simulacrum brought into existence by ideological fantasy––a manifestation of the colonialist Real.This work was funded by a full grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Counci