Bøger af Roger deV. Renwick

Drawing on the long tradition of folklore study, Roger deV. Renwick examines three genres: traditional English folksongs, local songs of regional interest, and working-class poetry. In the span of time that extends from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, he finds govern world views underlying a large sampling of poems related by common language, imagery, or topic, and then shows how these world views relate to the everyday lives and beliefs of the poetry's makers and users. There is, in addition, a pattern of historical continuity that links the rural folksongs of the eighteenth century with the part-rural, part-urban local songs of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and with the fully urban working-class poetry of the present day. English Folk Poetry is an immensely important contribution to folklore scholarship in its examination of contemporary working-class poetry, in its approach to questions of tacit meaning, and in its exploration of the relationship of inferential meanings to real, everyday lives.

In this crusading book Roger deV. Renwick argues that the business of folksong scholars is to explain folksong: folklorists must liberate the material's own voice rather than impose theories that are personally appealing. To that end, Renwick presents a case study in each of five essays to demonstrate the scholarly value of approaching this material through close readings and comparative analysis.