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Featured Course: Richard Green’s Ballad Course – English 577.01
They sang them in kitchens and back parlors and pubs, from the Appalachian Mountains to New England, in Canada, Nova Scotia, and England. These ballads were “the poetry of the people,” said Richard Green, Director of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies and a Humanities Distinguished Professor of English. Dr. Green teaches English 577.01, a folklore class that concentrates on the history of the ballad in America and beyond, and uses multimedia to do so.
Green treats his students to the field recordings of authentic ballads as well as the recordings of contemporary singers. “[Ballads] are designed to be heard. Playing the ballads in class is the only way to get the oral tradition across to the students,” said Green. The course also consists of modern day songsters such as Bob Dylan and Jerry Garcia, whose renditions of well-known ballads has made some of these songs more accessible to the public. Columbus’ own local folksinger, Hank Rabaugh, visits the class and treats the students to a live performance, so “we have life as well as tapes” said Green. This multifaceted course also features a showing of the movie The Songcatcher and supplemental Web texts, like http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/child/index.htm, which contains the e-texts of many famous ballads compiled by Francis Child, whose The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (1882-1898) essentially established the canon of folk music.
Green’s class received positive reviews from its students. Peter Allan, an undergraduate English major, took the class to fulfill his folklore requirements. “Professor Green’s obvious interest in the material and in presenting it in context of the attitudes of time—social, political, and otherwise—made the class seem less something I was required to take, and into something I would recommend to others.”
Dr. Green’s Ballads Course will be offered again in the Winter Quarter of 2008.
