Balladeering, Minstrelsy, and the Making of British Romantic Poetry

Description

This book is a history and theory of British poetry between 1760 and 1830, focussing on the relationship between Romantic poetry and the production, circulation and textuality of ballads. By discussing the ways in which eighteenth-century cultural and literary researches flowed into and shaped key canonical works, Maureen McLane argues that romantic poetry's influences went far beyond the merely literary. Breathing life into the work of eighteenth-century balladeers and antiquarians, she addresses the revival of the ballad, the figure of the minstrel, and the prevalence of a 'minstrelsy complex' in romanticism. Furthermore, she envisages a new way of engaging with romantic poetics, encompassing both 'oral' and 'literary' modes of poetic construction, and anticipates the role that technology might play in a media-driven twenty-first century. The study will be of great interest to scholars and students of Romantic poetry, literature and culture.

Review of the hardback: '[A] major book on poetry ... A deeply theoretical book, it is still accessible and even lighthearted. ... [This] book ... has transformed the field and should be required reading. Aware that poets, antiquarians, ethnographers, linguists, folklorists, and more consider ballads their property, she draws upon all and does and admirable job of sorting among them, Her mastery of the subject and method surface time after time ... just to be sure this book cannot be mistaken for an old-fashioned ballad study, she gives in-depth treatment to Mungo Park's 'Negro Song', styled an Afro-Scottish border ballad, and to 'Cherokee Death Song'. The paths she traces with them are too good to spoil by telling you; read the book.' Paula R. Backscheider, Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 Review of the hardback: 'Meeting a book to think with is not an everyday occurrence: Maureen N. McLane's Balladeering, Minstrelsy, and the Making of British Romantic Poetry is definitely one. I recommend it to folklorists who find disciplinary history intriguing or who have ever been smitten with the ballad or pondered the oral/written literary divide. ... she deals with general issues which have been central to the folkloristic enterprise - orality, authority, textualization - and raises important questions around specific aspects of some of our now-freighted genres and related subjects - the ballad, traditionality, minstrels. ... McLane offers a model of a more expansive way to examine not only our disciplinary past, but our generic concerns.' Mary Ellen Brown, Journal of Folklore Research Review of the hardback: 'From beginning to end, Balladeering, Minstrelsy, and the Making of British Romantic Poetry offers pithy, witty, and productively thought-provoking formulations, along with novel perspectives and unexpected conjunctions of material.' Angela Esterhammer, The Review of English Studies