Street Songs

Writers and urban songs and cries, 1800-1925

Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, Poetry History & Criticism, Nonfiction, Entertainment, Music
Cover of the book Street Songs by Daniel Karlin, OUP Oxford
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Daniel Karlin ISBN: 9780192568038
Publisher: OUP Oxford Publication: November 22, 2018
Imprint: OUP Oxford Language: English
Author: Daniel Karlin
ISBN: 9780192568038
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Publication: November 22, 2018
Imprint: OUP Oxford
Language: English

This book, based on the Clarendon Lectures for 2016, is about the use made by poets and novelists of street songs and cries. Karlin begins with the London street-vendor's cry of 'Cherry-ripe!', as it occurs in poems from the sixteenth to the twentieth century: the 'Cries of London' (and Paris) exemplify the fascination of this urban art to writers of every period. Focusing on nineteenth and early twentieth century writers, the book traces the theme in works by William Wordsworth, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, Walt Whitman, George Gissing, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and Marcel Proust. As well as street-cries, these writers incorporate ballads, folk songs, religious and political songs, and songs of their own invention into crucial scenes, and the singers themselves range from a one-legged beggar in Dublin to a famous painter in fifteenth-century Florence. The book concludes with the beautiful and unlikely 'song' of a knife-grinder's wheel. Throughout the book Karlin emphasizes the rich complexity of his subject. The street singer may be figured as an urban Orpheus, enchanting the crowd and possessed of magical powers of healing and redemption; but the barbaric din of the modern city is never far away, and the poet who identifies with Orpheus may also dread his fate. And the fugitive, transient nature of song offers writers a challenge to their more structured art. Overheard in fragments, teasing, ungraspable, the street song may be 'captured' by a literary work but is never, finally, tamed.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

This book, based on the Clarendon Lectures for 2016, is about the use made by poets and novelists of street songs and cries. Karlin begins with the London street-vendor's cry of 'Cherry-ripe!', as it occurs in poems from the sixteenth to the twentieth century: the 'Cries of London' (and Paris) exemplify the fascination of this urban art to writers of every period. Focusing on nineteenth and early twentieth century writers, the book traces the theme in works by William Wordsworth, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, Walt Whitman, George Gissing, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and Marcel Proust. As well as street-cries, these writers incorporate ballads, folk songs, religious and political songs, and songs of their own invention into crucial scenes, and the singers themselves range from a one-legged beggar in Dublin to a famous painter in fifteenth-century Florence. The book concludes with the beautiful and unlikely 'song' of a knife-grinder's wheel. Throughout the book Karlin emphasizes the rich complexity of his subject. The street singer may be figured as an urban Orpheus, enchanting the crowd and possessed of magical powers of healing and redemption; but the barbaric din of the modern city is never far away, and the poet who identifies with Orpheus may also dread his fate. And the fugitive, transient nature of song offers writers a challenge to their more structured art. Overheard in fragments, teasing, ungraspable, the street song may be 'captured' by a literary work but is never, finally, tamed.

More books from OUP Oxford

Cover of the book Corruption and Misuse of Public Office by Daniel Karlin
Cover of the book Letters of Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1895-1958 by Daniel Karlin
Cover of the book The End of the Timeless God by Daniel Karlin
Cover of the book Christmas as Religion by Daniel Karlin
Cover of the book Foxe's Book of Martyrs by Daniel Karlin
Cover of the book Bad Medicine by Daniel Karlin
Cover of the book A Dictionary of Film Studies by Daniel Karlin
Cover of the book Science, Religion, and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence by Daniel Karlin
Cover of the book The Prospect of Global History by Daniel Karlin
Cover of the book Oxford Manual of Major Incident Management by Daniel Karlin
Cover of the book The Country Wife and Other Plays by Daniel Karlin
Cover of the book One Hundred Patents That Shaped the Modern World by Daniel Karlin
Cover of the book Neoliberalism: A Very Short Introduction by Daniel Karlin
Cover of the book Oxford Handbook of Tropical Medicine by Daniel Karlin
Cover of the book The Oxford Handbook of Swedish Politics by Daniel Karlin
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy