Francis James Child, compiler and editor of English and Scottish Popular Ballads, established the scholarly study of folk ballads in the English-speaking world.

This is the first book to combine contemporary debates in ballad studies with the insights of modern textual scholarship. Just like canonical literature and mus

Thanks to ever-greater digital connectivity, interest in oral traditions has grown beyond that of researcher and research subject to include a widening pool of

Medieval literature is to a large degree shaped by orality, not only with regard to performance, but also to transmission and composition. Although problems of

A new interdisciplinary interest has risen to study interconnections between oral tradition and book culture. In addition to the use and dissemination of printe