[It took a few days for it to sink in that perhaps a few Scots may
have a bit of interest in this: Some headers deleted, others
shortened. As much as I would like to edit some of my comments,
I have not done so here.---- Bruce Olson]
>From - Thu Apr 05 18:56:46 2001
... News and discussion relevant to the study of popular /
folk
/ traditional b <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: book announcement
Luisa Del Giudice wrote:
>
> The University Press of Kentucky has just released Mary Ellen
Brown's
> William Motherwell's Cultural Politics. See
> http://www.uky.edu/UniversityPress/books/motherwell.html
>
> William Motherwell (l979-1835) journalist, poet,
man-of-letters, wit, civil
> servant, and outspoken conservative participated in a
loose-knit movement
> that might be designated cultural nationalism. Interested in
preserving
> relics of the past that suggested a distinctly Scottish culture
and
> nation, he was adamantly against changes he saw as eroding
Scottish
> identity.
>
> Motherwell worked out his ideological stance in a variety of
contexts: he
> founded the Paisley Magazine, collaborated with James Hogg on a
collection
> of the works of Burns, edited the Glasgow Couriera leading Tory
newspaper,
> served as Sheriff Clerk Depute of Renfrewshire, wrote poetry
and essays
> for the expanding periodical press, and edited and collected
vernacular
> literature. His l827 edition of ballads, Minstrelsy: Ancient
and Modern,
> offered views on authenticity, editorial practice, the nature
of oral
> transmission, and the importance of performance which
anticipated much
> later scholarly discourse.
>
> W.F.H. Nicolaisen says the study is "a must for all ballad
scholars. The
> depth, height, and breadth of this study comes as a real
eye-opener. This
> is ballad scholarship at its best."
>
> Price $39.95, plus postage.
>
> Luisa Del Giudice, Director
> I.O.H.I.
> Italian Oral History Institute
> P.O. Box 241553
> Los Angeles, CA 90024-1553
>....
Presumeably his Burns scholarship was later, because his version
of "Lang a growin" in 'Minstrelsy' is Burns revision and
extention of a 2 verse fragment from David Herd (Hecht's 'Herd',
XXXIX expanded to Burns' "Lady Mary Ann" in the Scots Musical
Museum, #372, 1792)
I can't help wondering if Motherwell actually collected any
ballads himself. He got Andrew Blaikie to note some tunes for
him, but at least some, and maybe all of his texts were brought
to him by others (as per F. J. Child).
PS: My copy of the Paisley Magazine, 1828, has MS attributions of
all pieces in it. [Motherwell held 2 of the 21 shares of the
joint stock company that issued the magazine.]
Stan Hugill's 'Shanties from the Seven Seas', p. 7, quotes from
'Landsman Hay', The Memoirs of Robert Hay, 1953. Robert Hay also
held 2 shares, and his 'biography' was printed in the series
entitled 'Sam Spritsail' in The Paisley Magazine, 125 years
earlier.
Bruce Olson
>From - Fri Apr 06 12:23:13 2001
Reply-To: News and discussion relevant to the study of
popular / folk / traditional b
...
From: Lynn Wollstadt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Bruce Olson wrote:
> [repeat last above]
I think it's pretty clear that he did...Bill McCarthy could
certainly talk about this; his book on Agnes Lyle, _The Ballad
Matrix_, includes a few quotes from Motherwell's notebook about
some of his face-to-face collecting experience.
Lynn Wollstadt
[Header and repeats deleted]
Thanks, I did't know about that one. For the many texts from the
extended MacQueen family which were brought to Motherwell and
Andrew
Crawfurd by two brothers in the MacQueen family see Emily Lyle's
"Andrew
Crawfurd's Collection of Ballads and Songs'. Dr. Lyle has managed
to
identify some of Mary MacQueen's tunes in Blaikie's MSS, and some
of her
songs have been reunited with her original tunes, and recorded on
Scottish Text Society cassette tape STS1. Dr. Lyle has even
traced many
current descendents to Canada.
Motherwell was rather indifferent about citing his sources.
Bruce Olson
.................................................................
--
Old English, Irish and, Scots: popular songs, tunes, broadside
ballads at my website (no advs-spam, etc)- www.erols.com/olsonw
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