Voices from Kilbarchan: Two versions of “The Cruel Mother” from South-West Scotland, 1825

Andersen, Flemming G.

doi:10.1353/ort.2014.0000

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…Six of Laird's songs were subsequently included in Child's corpus 14 . In a comparative analysis of Agnes Lyle's (another Kilbarchan singer) and Agnes Laird's versions of ‘The Cruel Mother’, Flemming Andersen noted distinct differences in the progression of the women's respective ballad narratives, noting how the singers employed the same traditional ballad narrative tools to produce ‘very different renditions, each with their own individual focus (which, we may speculate, may in some way reflect the two singers’ different tastes, personalities, and world views)’ (Andersen, 2014). Andersen finds, for example, that Laird's version is characterised by an emphasis on the psychological development of the ‘cruel mother’ of the ballad title.…”

Section: Findings (Ii): Effects Of Individual Singersmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A woman's tradition? Quantifying gender difference in the Child ballads

Duggan

2023

Orbis Litterarum

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While the major ballad‐collecting efforts of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were largely carried out by men, the academic discourse surrounding ballads gendered traditional balladry—orally transmitted narrative poetry—as a woman's tradition. Subsequent ballad scholarship of the twentieth century perpetuated the antiquarian notion of a specifically female ballad tradition, and yet it has remained unclear whether and how this women's tradition should be considered distinct from, for example, a male ballad tradition. This study suggests that a quantitative approach can be used to investigate the question of difference in women's and men's ballad repertoires in the period spanning the mid‐eighteenth century to the close of the nineteenth. Employing Linguistic Inquiry Word Count (LIWC) software to examine the definitive ballad anthology—the Child collection—this study finds that the notion of a woman's tradition goes beyond stereotypical notions of repertoires gendered by genre; women's ballads are instead found to be characterised by distinctive linguistic patterns that convey a strong focus on female subjectivity.

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Section: Findings (Ii): Effects Of Individual Singersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…( views)' (Andersen, 2014). Andersen finds, for example, that Laird's version is characterised by an emphasis on the psychological development of the 'cruel mother' of the ballad title.…”

Section: Ta B L Ementioning

confidence: 99%

A woman's tradition? Quantifying gender difference in the Child ballads

Duggan

2023

Orbis Litterarum

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The Importance of the Text: Infanticide ‒ from Life into Song and Literature

Kaučič

2017

Traditiones

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Prispevek se osredinja na temo detomora, ki je izjemno močno zastopana tako v slovenski kot v evropski baladni tradiciji kot tudi v delih evropskih in slovenskih avtorjev med 18. in 20. stoletjem, vse od Johanna W. Goetheja do Svetlane Makarovič. Predmet analize je baladni tip Obsojena detomorilka, eden redkih baladnih tipov, ki je nastal v urbanem okolju. Avtorica domneva, da je v tem primeru t. i. arhetekst ustvaril izobraženec in ne samo nadarjeni posameznik iz nižje družbene plasti, kakor se to navadno misli za ljudsko pesem. S tekstno analizo pesmi in na podlagi folklorističnih, etnoloških, antropoloških, zgodovinskih, pravnih in literarnovednih spoznanj ponovno presoja pomembnost besedila v razmerju s kontekstom in teksturo ter odkriva podrobnosti življenjskih razmer subjekta balade. Ta je povezan s t. i. realno osebo, saj naj bi balada nastala v drugi polovici 18. stoletja v Ljubljani. Ugotavlja, da so upodobitve ženske kot detomorilke in njene poznejše usode v baladah in literarizacijah odsevale družbeno-politično resničnost časa, v katerem so nastale. Le v redkih literarnih obdelavah pa je razviden prevladujoči odnos do ženske kot nezakonske matere in detomorilke. *** The article focuses on the theme of infanticide, which is known throughout both the Slovenian and general European ballad traditions, as well as in works of literature from the eighteenth to twentieth centuries (from Goethe to Makarovič). The special Slovenian ballad (type no. 287) in Slovenian Folk Songs, titled “The Convicted (or Condemned) Infanticide,” one of the rare ballad types from an urban environment, is analyzed. The author posits that the “archetext” of this ballad was created by an educated person and not merely a talented individual from the lower social strata, as one generally thinks of folk songs. Using textual analyses and employing theoretical discourses from folklore, ethnology, anthropology, history, and other areas, the paper establishes the importance of the text in the relation to context and texture. It also reveals details of the life conditions of the ballad’s subject, who is closely connected to the historical person, which indicates that the ballad was created in the second half of the eighteenth century in Ljubljana based on real events. Depictions of women as child-killers and their fate in ballads and literary works reflected the social and political reality of the times they originate from. However, only rare literary reworkings clearly show the dominant perspective on women as unwed mothers or child-killers.

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Voices from Kilbarchan: Two versions of “The Cruel Mother” from South-West Scotland, 1825

Abstract: Also refer to William McCarthy, who maintains that "there is no comparably intense set of data in the whole field of classical English and Scottish popular ballads" (1978:21).

Cited by 2 publications

References 14 publications

A woman's tradition? Quantifying gender difference in the Child ballads

A woman's tradition? Quantifying gender difference in the Child ballads

The Importance of the Text: Infanticide ‒ from Life into Song and Literature

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