Critics and the Ballad

MacEdward Leach, Professor of English at the University of Pennsyl­vania, is an internationally known medievalist and folklorist. He has been Secretary-Treasurer of the American Folklore Society for twenty-five years. Tristram P. Coffin is Associate Professor of English at the University of Penn­sylvania and a specialist in the ballad. His published works include The Brit­ish Traditional Ballad in North America and Ancient Ballads Traditionally Sung in New England (with Helen H. Flanders and Bruno Nettl).

“This is a well-planned book, and the ed­itors have included among their selections many necessary and/or interesting and important articles. It admirably fills two functions: for the scholar it is a conven­ient gathering of articles (many of them difficult of immediate access) and for the students a survey of the modes of ballad criticism.”—Midwest Folklore“They [the essays] furnish an invalu­able introduction to ballad criticism, and they also provide very good re-reading of the individual essay, not only for itself but as seen in the perspective of time, theme, and theory.”—Journal of International Folk Music Council