Voices from Kilbarchan: Two versions of “The Cruel Mother” from South-West Scotland, 1825

Andersen, Flemming G.

doi:10.1353/ort.2014.0000

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…Six of Laird's songs were subsequently included in Child's corpus 14 . In a comparative analysis of Agnes Lyle's (another Kilbarchan singer) and Agnes Laird's versions of ‘The Cruel Mother’, Flemming Andersen noted distinct differences in the progression of the women's respective ballad narratives, noting how the singers employed the same traditional ballad narrative tools to produce ‘very different renditions, each with their own individual focus (which, we may speculate, may in some way reflect the two singers’ different tastes, personalities, and world views)’ (Andersen, 2014). Andersen finds, for example, that Laird's version is characterised by an emphasis on the psychological development of the ‘cruel mother’ of the ballad title.…”

Section: Findings (Ii): Effects Of Individual Singersmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A woman's tradition? Quantifying gender difference in the Child ballads

Duggan

2023

Orbis Litterarum

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While the major ballad‐collecting efforts of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were largely carried out by men, the academic discourse surrounding ballads gendered traditional balladry—orally transmitted narrative poetry—as a woman's tradition. Subsequent ballad scholarship of the twentieth century perpetuated the antiquarian notion of a specifically female ballad tradition, and yet it has remained unclear whether and how this women's tradition should be considered distinct from, for example, a male ballad tradition. This study suggests that a quantitative approach can be used to investigate the question of difference in women's and men's ballad repertoires in the period spanning the mid‐eighteenth century to the close of the nineteenth. Employing Linguistic Inquiry Word Count (LIWC) software to examine the definitive ballad anthology—the Child collection—this study finds that the notion of a woman's tradition goes beyond stereotypical notions of repertoires gendered by genre; women's ballads are instead found to be characterised by distinctive linguistic patterns that convey a strong focus on female subjectivity.

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Section: Findings (Ii): Effects Of Individual Singersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…( views)' (Andersen, 2014). Andersen finds, for example, that Laird's version is characterised by an emphasis on the psychological development of the 'cruel mother' of the ballad title.…”

Section: Ta B L Ementioning

confidence: 99%