Etudes Epistémè (Jun 2022)

Visages de la bergère dans les broadside ballads

  • Chantal Schütz

DOI
https://doi.org/10.4000/episteme.14823
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 41

Abstract

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Broadside ballads represent one of the material traces of the penetration of the pastoral mode in all social classes. Three types of pastoral broadside ballads are discussed : elegies, dialogues and comedic songs, revealing how the multimodal nature of the broadsides (text, image, music) makes possible a limited representation of the material conditions of shepherds’ lives. The image of shepherdesses that emerges from those texts involves agency and a distinct voice, and characters that are less somewhat idealized than in courtly texts.

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