|
The Harris Repertoire consists of two manuscripts, both written by the sisters Amelia and Jane Harris. Containing 29 and 59 ballads and songs respectively, these manuscripts are part of the cornerstone of nineteenth-century ballad collecting. The second manuscript written was used by Francis James Child (1825–1896) in his seminal work, ''The English and Scottish Popular Ballads'', commonly known as the Child Ballads. ==History== In 1859 Amelia Harris sent William Edmonstoune Aytoun, a professor at the University of Edinburgh, a manuscript containing 29 ballads. She had heard him talk on the subject in Lerwick in 1855, and knew that he himself had published two volumes of "Antient Ballads". She enclosed a letter, which has become famous within ballad studies, for it not only presents the origin of the ballads she and her sister Jane knew, but offers the conundrum of ballads being passed from the non-literate to the literate. While the sisters knew, clearly loved, and sang the ballads, and did not re-create the tales, but sang what they knew, and were "most scrupulous in writing them exactly as I heard them, leaving a blank, when I was in doubt as to a word or line".〔This letter is bound in at the beginning of the 1859 MS, currently in the possession of the University of Edinburgh〕 Aytoun was appreciative of the manuscript, and wrote to the sisters to thank them - we know this from surviving extract made by Jane Harris.〔This is contained within the 1872 manuscript, housed in the Houghton Library, Harvard University, 25241.17 *〕 He also informed other collectors, whom he was in contact with, such as the Aberdonian advocate Norval Clyne.〔Contained within the ''Harris Letters'', no. 3."Letters and papers relating to the Harris MS", Houghton Library, Harvard University, 25241.41 *〕 Clyne was interested in the Harris sisters' version of "Sir Patrick Spens", as it provided evidence against the much-discussed "Lady Wardlaw Heresy", initiated by David Laing and perpetuated by Robert Chambers, which proposed that Lady Wardlaw was in fact the author of the ballad. While Aytoun's letter including the Harris sisters' version of the ballad came too late for Clyne to include it in the text of his refutation of Chambers' proposition, James Hutton Watson did use the Harris material - quoting a letter Aytoun had written to Clyne in its entirety. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Harris repertoire」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|