The Flowering Thorn : International Ballad Studies / / edited by Thomas A. McKean.

• Author: McKean, Thomas
• TeilnehmendeR: McKean, Thomas A., 1961-
• Place / Publishing House: Logan, Utah : : Utah State University Press,, 2003.; ©2003.
• Year of Publication: 2003
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (395 p.)
• Notes: "A project of the Kommission für Volksdichtung and the Elphinstone Institute."

The flowering thorn expresses the dual nature of the ballad: at once a distinctive expression of European tradition, but also somewhat tricky to approach from a scholarly perspective, requiring a range of disciplines to illuminate its rich composition. Most of this latter quality has to do with the very features that characterize ballads... or narrative songs. These include an appearance of fragmentation; a wide range of cultural and social referents; complex, evocative symbolic language; and variation. The notable multiformity of meaning, text and tune is mirrored in scholarsh

Table of Contents

Contents; Introduction; Now She's Fairly Altered Her Meaning: Interpreting Narrative Song; Malign Forces That Can Punish and Pardon: Structure and Motif; Recapturing the Journey: Cruxes of Context, Version, and Transmission; Regions, Reprints, and Repertoires; ""Purement scientifique et archeologique"": The Mediating Collector; Acknowledgments; Notes on Contributors; General Index; Song Title Index