The British Traditional Ballad in North America

by Tristram Potter Coffin, Roger deV. Renwick

Overview

Tristram Potter Coffin’s The British Traditional Ballad in North America, published in 1950, became recognized as the standard reference to the published material on the Child ballad in North America. Centering on the theme of story variation, the book examines ballad variation in general, treats the development of the traditional ballad into an art form, and provides a bibliographical guide to story variation as well as a general bibliography of titles referred to in the guide.

Roger deV. Renwick’s supplement to The British Traditional Ballad in North America provides a thorough review of all sources of North American ballad materials published from 1963, the date of the last revision of the original volume, to 1977. The references, which include published text fragments and published title lists of items in archival collections, are arranged according to each ballad’s story variations. Textual and thematic comparisons among ballads in the British and American tradition are made throughout. In his introductory essay Renwick synthesizes the various theoretical approaches to the phenomenon of variation that have appeared in scholarly publications since 1963 and provides examples from texts referred to in the bibliographical guide itself.

The supplement, like its parent work, is an invaluable reference tool for the study of variation in ballad form, content, and style. Together with the reprinted text of the 1963 edition, the supplement provides an exhaustive bibliography to the literature on the British traditional ballad in North America.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780292744813
Publisher:	University of Texas Press
Publication date:	07/01/1977
Series:	American Folklore Society Bibliographical and Special Series , #29
Edition description:	Revised ed.
Pages:	316
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.71(d)

About the Author

Tristram Potter Coffin (1922–2012) was Professor of English and Folklore at the University of Pennsylvania.Roger deV. Renwick is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Texas at Austin.

Table of Contents

• Introduction to the Revised Edition
• A Description of Variation in the Traditional Ballad of America
• A Bibliographical Guide to Story Variation in the Traditional Ballad in America
• The Traditional Ballad as an Art Form
• General Bibliography of Titles Abbreviated in the Study of Story Variation
• Index to Ballads Discussed
• Supplement
• Preface
• A Note on Variation in the British Traditional Ballad in North America
• A Bibliographical Guide to Story Variation in the British Traditional Ballad in North America
• Bibliography
• Discography
• Index to Standard Titles of Ballads and Songs