When written as a man taking a lady’s hand it can denote either rape or seduction. Lily-white hand serves as a warning something dramatic is about to happen. Here are a few of those stock phrases, some quite chilling when one learns their meaning! The best examples of these can be found in what was known as the “Child’s ballads” – songs of love, betrayal, murder, and mystery collected and published in the nineteenth century by Francis James Child in his The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. Each of these phrases had a message or meaning the listener knew at once because it was such a standard in so many ballads. One of the most fascinating of these is the stock phrase. In addition to word of mouth, during the Regency many of these songs came from the music hall in the form of parlour ballads, music hall comic operas and eventually in the form of commercial print literature and broadsheet publications.Ī few of the commonalities they shared were formulaic diction, stock phrases and narrative motifs. Their authors were often unknown and their words were interchangeable depending on the singer and the venue in which they were performed. It is a difficult field of study in one aspect as many of these songs have been passed down in varying forms long before they were written down. One of the most typically English forms is that of the traditional ballad. My study of the music of the Regency Era has covered a broad range of musical forms.
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