Desire, Drink and Death in English Folk and Vernacular Song, 1600û1900
Publisher: Ashgate Pub Co; Ashgate
Published: March 2008
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 276
ISBN-13: 9780754660941
Subjects: Contemporary popular music; Folk music; Social history; England; c 1600 to c 1700; c 1700 to c 1800; c 1800 to c 1900; General; Music
Description: "This much-needed book provides valuable insights into themes and genres in popular song in the period c. 1600-1900. In particular it is a study of popular ballads as they appeared on printed sheets and as they were recorded by folk song collectors. Vic Gammon displays his interest in the way song articulates aspects of popular mentality and he relates the discourse of the songs to social history. Gammon discusses the themes and narratives that run through genres of song material and how these are repeated and reworked through time. He argues that in spite of important social and economic changes, the period 1600-1850 had a significant cultural consistency and characteristic forms of popular musical and cultural expression. The book will appeal to those interested in folk song, historical popular music (including church music), ballad literature, popular literature, popular culture, social history, anthropology and sociology."--Jacket.