Written Dialect Tradition in the West Riding of Yorkshire

Description

An examination of song, recitation in verse and prose, and other items created for either public or private performance, appearing in dialect form and gathered from written or printed sources covering the years 1880 to 1900 in the West Riding of Yorkshire. The first of three chapters presents a brief historical survey of, and comments upon, song collecting in England, including the work of Cecil Sharp. The second chapter considers three main printed sources - broadsides, chapbooks and small cloth-bound volumes - and the subject matter of dialect material, broadly defined by the collector in four categories (working man's life, cautionary tales, anecdotal tales about local people and events, domestic descriptions and familial relationships). Textual examples to illustrate these categories are included, with details of their provenance. Chapter Three compares the subject matter of dialect verse and song with that of Standard English, and notes omissions in the former to be love, political activity and religion. This chapter also considers the literacy of the population, its general education, opportunities for reading, and the availability of printed matter as influential in the composition of locally produced material in the nineteenth century. A further section analyses style in dialect writing, with reference to the work of Thomas Blackah. Photocopied pages from printed sources referred to in the study are appended.

Metadata

Identifier p157cj4k
IRN 410207
Class Mark LAVC/SRP/2/171
Level File
Type of Record Archives - ISAD(G)
Peristent Link http://prototype1.library.leeds.ac.uk/p157cj4k
Collection(s) Leeds Archive of Vernacular Culture
Category Archive
Parent Record Undergraduate Dissertations
Creator(s) Harris, Wendy
Date 1973
Size and Medium iv, 52 unbound typed leaves.

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