Page:Old English ballads by Francis Barton Gummere (1894).djvu/75

Rh INTRODUCTION, Ixix and singer one does not necessarily solve the question of ultimate origins. One knows, for example, that the literary form of certain delightful German stories^ is chiefly due to Wilhelm Grimm ; but no one dreams that such a concession has anything to do with fixing the origin of popular tales. As little is done for ballads by the frantic appeal to common sense,^ or by talk of "author and public," and of "prices" and "competition" in the primitive German literary market. This is mere journalism. It is the critic's business to detach from the ballad, which is a compromise between tradition and art, all those elements in which art and the individual can have had no share, and to inquire whether the balance for communal forces can be explained on the simple basis of oral transmission. In other words, to borrow a phrase from M. Cosquin, after the student of ballads has determined the marque de fabrique * of a given specimen, it is in order for the student of the ballad itself to attack the more general but no less interesting problem, and determine the marque de fabrique of the popular elements in all ballads. In avoiding mysteries we may ignore facts. We have no right to study the exotic of a greenhouse, and assume ^ Kinder- und Hausmdrchen gesammelt durch die Briider Grimm. 2M. Anatole Loquin in MHusiney IV, 529 ff., reviewing Tiersot*s Chanson Populaire en France^ is very bold. " Find the author ! " he commands. Many pK>pular songs ( " chants populaires " ), he insists, are by known authors (p. 535). Even when Tiersot modestly remarks that these songs are " of the people," the reviewer cries, " Ah, qu*en savez-vous ? Vous trouveriez-vous done /^, quand ces chants ont iti composes ? " — This is certainly no argument. ^ VOrigine des Contes Populaires EuropienSy mimoire prisenti au Congris des Traditions Populaires de i88g ; mainly a criticism of theories held by Mr. Andrew Lang. See p. 6. Luckily, the task of determining the origin of popular elements in the ballad is not the unstable psychological process for which M. Cosquin has such horror (p. 19) ; it is largely a question of facts. Digitized by LjOOQIC