The ballad - Index of

The Ballad
men, leaders of the people by their counsel, poets
and singers. But if the ballad-lover would praise
those who were responsible for the making of
ballads, he would praise not famous men, but the
common herd
undistinguished many-headed
the people, not their leaders.
I have already warned the reader against the
literate habit of thinking of a " word " as a thing
written ;
he will now see that it is necessary to
dissociate the word " author " from the idea of
writing. We cannot easily eradicate from our
minds the association of authorship with pens
and ink, although we continue to use such
phrases as " "
the author of our being but in
;
the process of casting ourselves back into primitive
conditions we are well advised to revert to
the original senses of words. We are dealing
with a period when words are not yet written ;
authors therefore are unlettered, literature nonexistent.
Our task is to consider what sort of
verbal exchange takes place under such conditions,
in a community which in point of social
is
history
in its childhood.
Now, the root of the word " ballad " implies
dancing ; and the earliest forms of it, in late
Latin, Provencal, and early French, mean " a
song intended as the accompaniment to a dance."
Herein is more than a broad hint that we are near
the sources of rhythm, and are confronted with
the universal human instinct for accompanying
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