Premium Essay

Pauline Greenhill Folksong Revival

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Submitted By julpetitt
Words 1159
Pages 5
Pauline Greenhill closely examines historical Folklore music in her writing titled, Neither a Man nor a Maid. Greenhill has found great interest in Folk music since a young age and has often interpreted the songs she listened to as “embodying a conventional heterosexual narrative of lovers divided” (156). With age and a new found interest in queer theory, she reevaluates these songs meanings. Greenhill studies a collection of songs written by Kenneth Peacock that originated in between 1951 and 1961. She believes that Peacock’s songs are a good representation of the many songs in existence during a similar period of time. The author describes Peacock’s songs as “cross-dressing ballads” because of the way that they are performed in front of an audience. A woman dresses in men’s clothing during performances to represent herself as her counterparts equal. The lyrics of these songs and their presentation suggest a great deal about the main characters’ sexual identities as they may have been perceived by the songs creators and audiences now and in the past. For many years Folklorists and Feminists have assumed that historical ballads have focused solely on heterosexual relationships, but Greenhill argues these conventional interpretations are false and that the songs have multiple implications. Greenhill believes that there is enough evidence to conclude that there is a presence of queer identifying characters in Peacock’s ballads’ texts. She begins by studying a song titled, “Blue Jacket and White Trousers.” In this song, the captain finds attraction to the cross-dresser and perceives this attraction as homosexual expressing that “he wishes “he” was a maid” (Greenhill 169). Although the captain is clearly remorseful, he feels as though his love for the “boy” is strong and proposes marriage because the cross-dresser offers ideal qualities. In this song, and many others,

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