By David Atkinson.
185pp.
£15.00 (+£3.20 p+p). For overseas postage please contact us before paying
ISBN 978-1-0686406-1-2
It is well-nigh impossible to think about categories like ‘ballads’ and ‘folk songs’ without bringing to mind favourite examples. It is almost equally difficult to describe the sources of the value that we ascribe to those examples. Outlandish Knights explores these issues by drawing on methods and approaches from aesthetics, the branch of philosophy that deals with the feelings, concepts, and judgements that arise from the contemplation of the arts.
Topics range across the voices heard in songs, the thorny issue of authenticity, the moral stance of ballads, the conjunction of language and music, the impossible idealism in studying songs from the past, the type/version paradigm of ballad scholarship, the formation of canons such as the Child ballads, and what is meant by the ballad as a genre. Running through all the chapters is the paradox of subjectivity and objectivity that was first posed in Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Judgement, the founding text of modern aesthetics.
Contents
1. Appropriations and Aesthetics
2. Who Is Speaking in Songs?
3. Self-Realization and the Measure of Authenticity
4. How Ethical Are Ballads?
5. Hybrid Art: The Conjunction of Language and Music
6. Regression towards an Imagined Ideal; or, Folk Song as Schrödinger’s Cat
7. Types and Versions: Problems and Consequences
8. Folk Song and the Metaphysics of Canon Formation
9. Genre and the Ballad Idea: The Case of the Golden Ball
Afterword
Select Bibliography
Index of Ballads and Songs
Index
The Ballad Partners 