Stories beyond the Text: Contextualizing Narratives and 'The Jolly Beggar'
| Autor: | Thomas McKean |
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| Rok vydání: | 2015 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | Narrative Culture. 2:208 |
| ISSN: | 2169-0235 1512-1542 |
| Popis: | This paper looks at the interplay between song and story in the ballad tradition, as exemplifijied by a present-day Scottish Traveller family. Through looking at how "contextualizing narratives" interweave with the songs-fijilling gaps in plot, anchoring a song in time, or developing a didactic message-I explore how Travellers use tradition to mediate their relationship with mainstream society. Finally, I look at the function, meaning, and continued relevance of these narratives for this marginalized group.The ballad in Scottish tradition is a song that tells a story, a compact narrative arc communicating human emotion, experience, and history. The songs contain some of the most distilled and quietly expressive poetic language to be found anywhere, wrapped around intriguing, moving, and sometimes horrifying plots. They are perfectly formed storytelling packages. Why, then, are they often performed interleaved with segments of prose narrative? It turns out that thinking of ballads as freestanding songs-as generations of scholars and editors have-is something of a misunderstanding of how the tradition actually works. In its natural context, performance in the home in a small social or family circle, the ballad is habitually presented interwoven with segments of spoken narrative that amplify episodes, fijill out backstories, detail relationships, and unpack events, exploring abstract ideas of love, loyalty, and treachery. This tradition of contextualizing narratives goes some way to rendering immaterial scholars' (but not singers') perception of ballads as "inadequate narrative" (Hyman 239, see also Constantine and Porter).This essay will examine the tradition of contextualizing narratives focusing on a short series of stories that relate to the reign and conduct of Scotland's King James V (1512-1542), tales that have come down through time with themes found across the world. I will consider the structure and function of this performance paradigm along with the story's contemporary function and meaning for Scottish Travellers.Travellers are a seminomadic people considered native to Scotland with a complex pair of intertwined origin legends. The fijirst of these avers that they are Scotland's oldest indigenous people, itinerant metalworkers (tinsmiths) and that current families descend from those who no longer had clan employment after the Jacobite defeat at Culloden in 1746 (Douglas 1, 5, 7-11). There is reference to a tinsmith caste in Perth in the twelfth century (Gentleman and Swift 9) and Stanley Robertson mentions their presence in the context of James I, 1394-1437 (Robertson "Son David," 15: 25). The second legend maintains a possible (cultural and genetic) kinship to the Gypsies, or "Egyptians" as they were called due to their misunderstood origins, Romanies who arrived in Scotland in the early sixteenth century, during the reign of James IV, 1488-1513 (Fraser 111-20; McCormick 386-400). "Gypsies were the victims of oppression, harassment, and discrimination and of persistent effforts to outlaw and destroy their way of life" (Nord 3), and there were numerous laws controlling their movements and associations, though these were often not enforced in practice (Mayall 43-62, in the English context). Even today, Travellers are victims of virulent prejudice in both legislation and the media (BBC "Aberdeen Council," "Council Monitors"; and Evening Express). The settled population's attitudes have been characterized as "the last acceptable face of racism in modern Scotland" (Amnesty).Until recently, Travellers were seminomadic, living on the periphery of society, fijirst in temporary structures such as a "bow tent," a canvas-covered framework of willow or hazel, and later in caravans (trailers) and houses. Travellers were also, however, an integral part of Scottish rural life for many years, providers of seasonal labor and dealers in recycled clothing, metals, horses, cars, and caravans. Since the 1950s, they have also been invaluable contributors to folklorists working on the documentation and preservation of traditional stories, songs, and customs (Henderson 85-87). … |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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