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“And every day there is music”: Folksong Roots and the Highway Chain Gang in The Ballad of the Sad Café

“And every day there is music”: Folksong Roots and the Highway Chain Gang in The Ballad of the... " ndeverydaythereismusic": A FolksongRootsandtheHighway ChainGanginThe Ballad of the Sad Café By Daniel Patrick Barlow It is an interesting thought that perhaps all the music that Negroes in America have made might have been quite different if the work that they were brought here to do had been different. Suppose Negroes had been brought to this country to make vases or play basketball. How might the blues have developed then from the impetus of work songs geared to those occupations? -- Amiri Baraka, Blues People Question: When is a ballad not a ballad? Answer: When it has no tune. -- Bertrand H. Bronson, The Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads This essay explores the utility and musicality of the ballad relative to Carson McCullers's The Ballad of the Sad Café. Most often, this novella is perceived as a literary ballad, even if perfunctorily so. Joseph Millichap's prominent analysis is one such example, wherein he states that "the description of her narrative as a ballad, so obviously presented in the title, provides a key to understanding which unlocks the novella's difficulties of literary mode, point of view, characterization, and plot strucThe Southern Literary Journal, volume xliv, number 1, fall 2011 http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png The Southern Literary Journal University of North Carolina Press

“And every day there is music”: Folksong Roots and the Highway Chain Gang in The Ballad of the Sad Café

Barlow, Daniel Patrick.
The Southern Literary Journal , Volume 44 (1) – Feb 17, 2011
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University of North Carolina Press
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Copyright © 2008 the Southern Literary Journal and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Department of English .
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1534-1461
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Abstract

" ndeverydaythereismusic": A FolksongRootsandtheHighway ChainGanginThe Ballad of the Sad Café By Daniel Patrick Barlow It is an interesting thought that perhaps all the music that Negroes in America have made might have been quite different if the work that they were brought here to do had been different. Suppose Negroes had been brought to this country to make vases or play basketball. How might the blues have developed then from the impetus of work songs geared to those occupations? -- Amiri Baraka, Blues People Question: When is a ballad not a ballad? Answer: When it has no tune. -- Bertrand H. Bronson, The Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads This essay explores the utility and musicality of the ballad relative to Carson McCullers's The Ballad of the Sad Café. Most often, this novella is perceived as a literary ballad, even if perfunctorily so. Joseph Millichap's prominent analysis is one such example, wherein he states that "the description of her narrative as a ballad, so obviously presented in the title, provides a key to understanding which unlocks the novella's difficulties of literary mode, point of view, characterization, and plot strucThe Southern Literary Journal, volume xliv, number 1, fall 2011

Journal

The Southern Literary Journal – University of North Carolina Press

Published: Feb 17, 2011

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