The Ballad Matrix: Personality, Milieu, and the Oral Tradition

William McCarthy

After reading McCarthy's small book about the ballads of Agnes Lyle, one is likely to think that the Scots ballad tradition is more reminiscent of modern death metal than “Danny Boy.” Ms. Lyle was a very angry sort of lass, it would seem, and the twenty-three ballads McCarthy examines (collected by J. F. Child in the nineteenth century, and presumably comprising Lyle's entire repertoire) are a rather nasty, brutish, depressing lot. McCarthy does mention that the ballads the singer chooses to sing are often a reflection of her temperament, and mentioned a few other singers in the Child writings who have a much better outlook on life.

That said, McCarthy's study of the oral tradition in Scots ballads is a fun and fascinating one. Now this is an academic study that is readable by a layperson, and accessible to the common man. McCarthy introduces us to the main schools of thought on ballad creation and composition in the introduction, then goes on to examine the Lyle texts in order to get a more objective view of the actual creation process. He never gets bogged down in jargon and never goes off into the academic heights preferred by many of his contemporaries on the literary criticism scene. He starts out without a case to make, but by the end, he's made one anyway.

All in all, one of the best pieces of literary criticism I've read. A number of authors could take a few tips from McCarthy's writing style— make it readable and more people, hopefully, will read it.