Common use of Final remarks Clause in Contracts

Final remarks. My conceptualisation of folksong in this last part of the Introduction (§1.3) has placed especial emphasis on the contexts of reception and perception over the contexts of production and composition. From this perspective, folk songs are no longer interpreted as oral, unsophisticated, anonymous and traditional, in opposition to what is written, sophisticated, authorial and modern. Such binary oppositions result only from a preconceived distinction of folk (lowbrow) poetry and literary (highbrow) poetry, a distinction which does not really account for what a folk song is, but which instead a priori defines sets of texts as ‘folk’ after deciding on what a folk song should not be. I have tried to demonstrate that a folk song can still be considered oral, anonymous and traditional, not because it is composed under certain conditions and for specific social categories, but due to the modalities in which the song is used and perceived by its users. These users correspond to varied social groups that can be termed ‘folk groups’ (in Dundes’ terminology). Besides, texture and formal features can sometimes be helpful in determining this folk-mode of perception, but they do not necessarily result in preconceived (lowbrow) contexts of origin and composition. Folk songs are oral because they are actualised in oral reperformances, regardless of their original processes of composition and transmission, processes from which the use of writing cannot be excluded a priori. In their 282 On the relationship between communal creation and communal ownership in oral poetry as a whole, see ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ 1977: 201-206. contexts of reperformance – which have been interpreted as synchronic reperformances – folk songs are primarily perceived from an occasional-functional perspective over a self-standing one. Features such as basic style and simple structure may point to the universal applicability of certain songs, and they may be more apt than others to be perceived from a functionalist perspective, and therefore to be appropriated by folk groups. Accordingly, folk songs can be considered traditional not because they can be traced back to an undefined ancient origin, but because they are part of a traditional, recurring event, in which folk groups share and appropriate the event’s songs for specific purposes. Finally, the songs so used and perceived do not need to be authorised by an authorial voice/identity. In Foucauldian terms, we can speak of the folk songs’ non-operative ‘author-function’. Folk songs are anonymous not so much because their authorship is unknown, but because they are used and perceived as unauthorised compositions. In this sense, they belong to the various folk groups who share them. Due to this ownership, folk groups have the possibility and the right to modify their own songs by means of variants. My conceptualisation has the advantage of looking at folk songs not as ready-made sets of texts. Certainly, genres such as begging songs and work songs are more easily attributable to the realm of folksong. Yet, begging and work songs do not represent a given textual category. Rather, it can be said these texts are generally used and perceived in a way that can be defined as the folk-mode of reception. This approach is in step with the most innovative theories and methodologies adopted in the field of folkloristics, theories and methodologies that do not focus on the ‘who’ and on the ‘what’ but explore the ‘how’. Folklore is therefore interpreted as a form of cultural appropriation, which everyone may take a part in. Furthermore, my conceptualisation is able to offer a better understanding of both what the texts included in the carmina popularia represented in their performative contexts and of how the learned approached these texts in antiquity. In the chapters that follow, I shall show that even folk songs were involved in the so-called process of textualisation (cf. §1.2.1.i), and that, therefore, they could be studied as proper poems as well as analysed in a literary discourse. This view is supported by the fact that the notion of folksong here illustrated is not in direct opposition to the category of literature. The boundaries separating what is ‘folk’ and what is ‘literary’ are not fixed, and more importantly, they do not depend on concrete and well-defined criteria. A folk song is such because it is used and perceived in a determined modality, but the same song-text can be used and perceived differently in different contexts of reception and analysis, such as literary reception and analysis. In the chapters to follow, I shall extend this approach and conceptualisation that has been delineated in my Introduction to the specific analysis of some ancient Greek texts included in the carmina popularia. In the next two chapters, I shall discuss in detail the genres of begging songs – with a particular focus on PMG 848 (ch. 2) – and work songs, through the analysis of PMG 849 and 869 (ch. 3). In the fourth and last chapter, I shall discuss more broadly some cult and ritual songs present in the collection (PMG 847, 851, 854, 860, 862, 864, 868, 870, 871). In general, I retain in each chapter the format of a thematic commentary, which is why the texts examined are printed together with a revised critical apparatus, translation, and comparanda. But I avoid the disjunctive style of a lemmatic commentary and give each chapter a continuous narrative and argument better suited to the goals of my dissertation. My analysis will not only be undertaken from a linguistic, stylistic and metrical point of view, but it will also take into consideration the performative contexts of use and consumption, as well as the reception of the texts from the perspective of the ancient scholars and other literati. The aim is not to identify songs that are folk by their nature and songs that are not folk in absolute terms, but to stress that the same kinds of texts can be interpreted in different ways (folk and/or literate), according to their different modalities of use and reception.