Focusing on particular characters, situations, or emotions--usually with
little or no explicit plot--lyric song poses interpretive challenges to
the listening audience. Without an overt plot, how does one understand
what a song is about? Are there rules or norms for how to interpret
them? Do these rules remain the same from culture to culture, or do they
vary?
By looking at the ways in which cultures in Northern Europe interpret
lyric songs, Thomas A. DuBois illuminates both commonalities of
interpretive practice and unique features of their musical traditions.
DuBois draws on sets of lyric songs from England, Wales, Scotland,
Ireland, Norway, Sweden, and Finland to explore the question of meaning
in folklore, especially the role of traditional audiences in appraising
and understanding nonnarrative songs.
DuBois's examples range from the medieval and early modern periods to
the late twentieth century. His nuanced study explicates folk practices
of interpretation--a "native hermeneutics" existing alongside folk songs
in North European oral tradition. He examines lyric songs--particularly
formal laments--embedded with prose or poetic narratives; the ritual use
of lyric as charms and laments in premodern Europe; the development of
personalized meanings within hymns and devotional prayers of the high
Middle Ages; Shakespeare's lyric songs and their demands on the
audience; and the ways in which professional lyric singers encourage
certain interpretations of their songs. The only study to examine a
range of northern European lyric traditions as a unified group, Lyric,
Meaning, and Audience in the Oral Tradition of Northern Europe will be
of interest to scholars in medieval studies, literary studies, and
folklore.
