Talk:Francis James Child

The rose and the briar

Is an image or figure of speech that appears in many ballads. The ballads do not really "feature" roses.Mballen (talk) 07:11, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Jewry

It is noted that Child made no comment on, nor criticised "sexuality, theatrical violence, and ill-concealed paganism of many ballads". Yet he criticised what he apparently perceived to be an anti-Jewish element in “Hugh of Lincoln”. How is this latter criticism "characteristic of the man"? It seems to be a contradiction: he either has no problem with, or choses not to express comments on, various evils, yet disapproves of a song simply because the villain is a Jew. Seems odd to me.JohnC (talk) 04:04, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

He disapproved and glossed but did not censor or alter the text. Where is the contradiction? For the rest, he did not include x-rated elements, which would have been unthinkable in the Victorian era, anyway, which still had an idea of reticence.Mballen (talk)

Chronology of the Ballads

The introduction to the article states: "In 1876 he was named Harvard's first Professor of English...It was during this time that he began work on the Child Ballads." This seems inaccurate since Child had already published the earlier work "The English and Scottish Ballads" in 1857-59 as noted in the quote in the final section entitled "The English and Scottish Popular Ballads". Child had also published in 1874 the now famous essay "Ballad Poetry", as noted in this final section.

Also in this final section it states "Child's monumental final collection was published posthumously as The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, at first in ten parts (1882–1898) and then in five quarto volumes". Well, since he did not die until 1896 this statement must also be inaccurate, some volumes, possibly all of one of these editions, must have been published during his lifetime.

I recognise that there have been many editions of both the precursor work "The English and Scottish Ballads" and of the major work "The English and Scottish Popular Ballads" and am not trying to split hairs. But I do think it important get a grip on the dates of the first editions of each work and/or volume, so that these can be tied into the article in the context of Child's life and career.

Unless anyone else is keen to take this on, I'll see if I can work out the relevant detail for the sequence of Child's works from the text images available in online versions, in order to clarify the above. It may then be preferable to insert the detailed results into the article on the Ballads itself and cross-reference from here.

Inspeximus (talk) 07:50, 7 June 2013 (UTC)