Category: Poetry

Studies in Folk-Song and Popular Poetry

|Mr. Williams's essays merit a few words of commendation from folk-lorists on this side of the Atlantic as being calculated to interest readers in a subject which is full of profound significance, but against which they may possibly be prejudiced in the degree that science cla...

Chapters

14. Part 14

The ballad of The Ship Catharine is one of the best known and most popular among the folk-songs of Portugal. Various attempts have been made by Almeida Garrett, Braga, and other...

15. Part 15

The ballad of Dom Aleixio, of which there are several versions, has a lightness of touch in the description of the masquerading maid, which is not often found in the popular bal...

12. Part 12

The amatory folk-songs of Brittany have their peculiar images and phrases, like those of all other countries, and which are repeated without variation as almost essential charac...

16. Part 16

|It gives one a strange idea of what treasures of primitive poetry and music may yet be found among the peasantry of Europe, when a volume like this--The Bard of the Dimbovitza,...

5. Part 5

It is almost needless to say to the student of literature that the art of popular ballad writing is extinct, or is successful only in the rarest instances. Poets of genuine powe...

13. Part 13

In Le Berger qui me fait le Cour, the shepherdess displays more grace and sentiment in refusing to point out the identity of her lover, while avowing her charming and spontaneou...

11. Part 11

|The publication in 1859 of Count Hersart de Villemarqué's Barzaz Breiz, or collection of ancient Breton ballads and folk-songs, excited almost as much interest in the literary...

3. Part 3

Of collections and criticisms of the songs and poetry of the civil war in this country there is no lack. Newspaper files and popular song-books have been ransacked, as well as m...

6. Part 6

By far the larger number of the popular ballads had their origin in Scotland, and they are also of much finer quality than those of England. Even if the question of the origin o...

10. Part 10

In such surroundings, what was the character and career of Thom himself? An active mind led him to the perusal of such books as came in his way, and a poetical temperament made...

9. Part 9

"To have done this clearly and completely, so that the past lives again and is felt by the instinct of nature to be true and real, free from confusion and extravagance, the impe...

8. Part 8

So far as the direct study of Celtic poetry was concerned the Ossianic controversy was unquestionably a misfortune. It threw a cloud of suspicion and discredit upon the genuine...

7. Part 7

As has been said, The Land o' the Leal reaches the highest note in its inspiration, perfection, and completeness, within the limits of its purpose, not only of Lady Nairne's wor...

1. Part 1

|Mr. Williams's essays merit a few words of commendation from folk-lorists on this side of the Atlantic as being calculated to interest readers in a subject which is full of pro...

4. Part 4

A seaman on board the Vandalia, one of the ships engaged in the capture of Port Royal, wrote a description of the engagement, which has considerable of the light of battle in it...

2. Part 2

The naval war of 1812 was a glorious epoch in American history. The achievements of the troops were very far from creditable, with a few exceptions, including, of course, the gr...

17. Part 17

A marked feature in these folk-songs of Roumania, as in those of all other nations, is the place which fighting has in them, the songs of the soldiers who are going to battle fo...