Sources III: Music, Song, and Dance
Introduction
This is the third of five seminars which discuss the sources available to the historian of folklore. In this seminar we look at music, songs, and dance.
Seminar Question
What are the advantages and disadvantages of music, song, and dance as sources for the historian of folklore in Europe?
Required Reading
- You should each read both of these items:
Karoblis, Gediminas, '', Journal of Baltic Studies 44/3 (2013), 395–406.
Roud, Steve, Folk Song in England (London, 2017),
This chapter is also available .
- You should each choose and analyse one song from these collections:
EITHER
Reeder, Roberta, ed., (Philadelphia, 1975)
OR
Roud, Steve, and Julia Bishop, eds, (Harmondsworth, 2014)
- Finally, I would like each of you to watch the short trailer of this film .Link opens in a new window
Roud, Steve, and Julia Bishop, eds, (Harmondsworth, 2014)Link opens in a new windoLink opens in a new wind
Further Reading
Boyes, Georgina, The Imagined Village: Culture, Ideology and the English Folk Revival (Leeds, 2010)
Buchanan, Donna A.. ed., Balkan Popular Culture and the Ottoman Ecumene: Music, Image, and Regional Political Discourse (Lanhan, MD, 2007)
Carmichael, Alexander, Carmina Gadelica: Hymns and Incantations, 2 vols (Edinburgh, 1900), and
Cooley, Timothy J., Making Music in the Polish Tatras: Tourists, Ethnographers, and Mountain Musicians (Bloomington, IN, 2005)
Davies, Owen, and Ceri Houlbrook, Link opens in a new window (Manchester, 2025), Chapter 2.
Emmerson, George S., and Ken Cuthbertson, (Montreal, 1972)
Gammon, Vic, 'Song, Sex, and Society in England, 1600-1850', Folk Music Journal 4: 3 (1982), 208-245
Kinney, Phyllis, Welsh Traditional Music (Cardiff, 2011)
Mason, Laura, (Ithaca, NY, 1996)
Matyka, Henryk, The Folk Dance and Costume Atlas of Poland: History, Heography, Music, Weddings, Dances, Songs, Costumes, with illustrations by Mark Attrill (n.s., UK, 1991)
Nemes, Robert, '', Slavic Review 60/4 (2001), 802–823
Nunley, Charles, '', The French Review 84/2 (2010), 284–298.
O虂 hAllmhura虂in, Gearo虂id, A Short History of Irish Traditional Music (Dublin, 2017)
Opie, Iona, and Peter Opie, eds, The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, 2nd ed (Oxford, 1997)
Riley, Matthew, and Anthony D. Smith, (Woodbridge, 2016), Chapter Two 'Folk Music into Art Music'.
Schofield, Derek, 'Visions of English Identity: The Country Dance and Shakespeare-Land', in Folklore and Nation in Britain and Ireland, ed. Matthew Cheeseman and Carina Hart (London, 2022), 114-131
Simons, Matt, 'Embodied Englishness in the Inter-War Morris Revival', in Folklore and Nation in Britain and Ireland, ed. Matthew Cheeseman and Carina Hart (London, 2022), 132-145
Thompson, E. P., '', Folklore 103, no. 1 (1992): 3–26.
Vallely, Fintan, ed., The Companion to Irish Traditional Music, 2nd. ed., (Cork, 2011)
Williams, Liz, Rough Music: Folk Customs, Transgression and Alternative Britain (London, 2025)
Wood, Peter, '', Folk Music Journal 8: 4 (2004), 438-455
Young, Rob, Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain's Visionary Music (London, 2011)
Electronic Resources
Link opens in a new window