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

52
1.
The Pragmatic Context
Redfield recommends thaI the invesligalion of cultural worldview progress from
describing the milieu in its immediate and objeclive reality lawards less readily observable
aspects of culture. To initiate this inquiry, the following two chapters examine the
ethnographic reality of the symbolic expressions of Newfoundland's trilditional culture on
the undersmnding that
The singing of songs mUSt, in some manner or other, rehllc 10 the
unfolding drama that is the human community. Traditional songs--like the
community and its institutions--outlive the individual actors involved, so
for them 10 persist through time they must speak to individuals in Icons of
cultural constants .... The locus of the continuity of folklore fomls may
finally be found in lhe social roles of a community (...) and their relalion
to the persistem problems ofcommunity organization and survival. t
The first of lhese chaplers surveys the major eXlernal evems which have shaped
Newfoundland's society; the second looks al the moral orientalions of its people in these
circumstances with a view to assessing lhe meanings thal classical ballads and other genres
have communicated to local audiences in the light of lhese "pragmatics."