Overview

Where shall I meet you my pretty little dear With your red rosy cheeks and your coal black hair I'm going a milking kind sir she answered me But it's dabbling in the dew where you might find me The cusp of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw a revived fascination with the native song of England, perhaps best known through the work of that crusading folklorist Cecil Sharp. But while the music was inoffensive enough to genteel ears, the violent, ribald and frequently erotic lyrical content was definitely not the respectable Victorian or Edwardian's cup of tea. Accordingly, the folk verse that did find its way into print was invariably neutered by what Alan Lomax describes as 'the dictates of the puritanical and namby-pamby editors of the Mauve Decade'. In The Idiom of the People (1958), James Reeves has revisited Cecil Sharp's manuscripts, restoring a selection of 115 folk lyrics to their authentic, unexpurgated form. The result is a fascinating record of England's traditional verse, in all its robust, vigorous and beguiling glory.

Full Product Details

9780571245703

Table of Contents

Reviews

Author Information

James Reeves (1909-78) was a poet, educationalist and folklorist. He read English at Cambridge University, where he co-founded the influential literary magazine Experiment with Jacob Bronowski. After university, he forged a successful career in teaching, but failing eyesight forced him to retire in 1952, whereupon he became a full-time writer and editor. His other publications include Collected Poems, 1929-1974, Complete Poems for Children (1973), and, with Martin Seymour-Smith, Inside Poetry (1970).

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available