Untitled - Memorial University's Digital Archives - Memorial ...

354
Conclusions
This invesligalion of death as an expression of worldview in Newfoundland has
examined salient diachronic and synchronic aspects of its culture, and paid particular
attention 10 the relevant classical ballads. This intra-cultural examination, besides, has been
guided by insights borrowed from psychology, sociology and cultural history with regard
to personal, social and cullural responses to dealh. The result is a set of three distinct
analyses "identifying" meanings at the levels of these ballads' pragmatic, symbolic and
poetic contexts. PUI together, this data projects a constellation of meanings expressed both
within and around the ballads, and allows an assessment of the cullural character of their
worldview with respect to death.
In nccordance with the initial hYJX>thesis of this thesis, this analysis of cultural altitudes
about death claims to have found unity underneath diversity, or, as Renwick suggests
concerning a heterogeneous body of English folk poetry, "the coherence of a unified
system of meanings."1 The present study, indeed, yields an "interpretation" of these
ballads' message as corresponding both with their people's environment and their
expressive culture at large. More even than a fitling pan of this culture, the ballad corpus,
within its own poetic context, articulates a sharp expression of this cultural message.
While this translates attitudes and meanings pervading Anglo-American classical balladry
and even Western cultural tradition at large, its expression via the Newfoundland ballad
corpus and its revenant types in particular, attests emphasis and popularity suggesting
uncommon and lasting significance locally. Even though Iheir message makes universal
sociological and psychological sense. the maritime as well as "traditional" character of
'ewfoundland society quite reasonably accounts for the revenant types' local prominence
and Sllccess. As a poetic and eminently dramatic expression of Newfoundlanders'
voluntary and positive attti[lJde 10 life, whatever its hardships, these ballads' message has
likely sustained Iheir people's courage in life, and especially in bereavement.
To assess the cultural meaning and function of the local ballad corpus. I propose to
start back from the core analysis of this study and "reconstruct" Newfoundland's death
tradition .md worldview around it.
IRcnwick. EnglLth 14.