Greek Folk Songs From The Turkish Provinces Of Greece Albania Thessaly And Macedonia

Author : Lucy Garnett
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781546357223
Total Pages : 294 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (572 download)

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Download or read book Greek Folk-songs from the Turkish Provinces of Greece written by Lucy Garnett and published by . This book was released on 2017-04-27 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Preface: Remarks, Political and Linguistic. THOSE Nationalist Antiquarian Researches, to which the chief impulse was given by the enthusiasm excited by Macpherson's Ossian (1760), have developed, in the course of the century since then, into Comparative and Scientific Studies of Folk-life and Folk-lore. The results, however, obtained by that earlier Antiquarianism had an immense effect on the writing, or rather, in most cases, the rewriting of National Histories; nor was History affected only in its facts by Antiquarian results, but in its style by Antiquarian imagination-and this especially through the influence of those novels of Sir Walter Scott's, which constitute a single great Romance of European History. But if that earlier Antiquarianism, painstaking, yet, in general, sufficiently prejudiced as it was, had effects so great on the writing of History; still greater things may, I think, be expected from Antiquarianism developed as it now is into a Comparative Science of Folk-life and Folk-lore. If, like the earlier Antiquarianism, this new Comparative Science has a sphere of influence corresponding to its scope of study, it should cause the rewriting, not of mere National Histories, but of the General History of Civilization. Nor is this an inference merely from the greater scope of the New Antiquarianism. Invaluable as the greater generalizations of the New Philosophy of History may be as suggestive hypotheses, they have always been more or less influenced by the conventional views of the educated class to which the Philosopher has belonged. Historical generalizations, therefore, thus influenced, and yet dealing with large historical facts of Belief and Conduct, cannot but be importantly corrected, if not altogether recast, if the evidence as to Belief and Conduct is sought, not merely, as usually hitherto, in Literature, but also, and even more assiduously, in the realities of Folk-life, and the records of Folk-lore. It is this view and aim, less or more distinctly defined, that has always guided my historical studies, and that has recently led me to the study more especially of Greek Folk-songs. And some results of this study will be found indicated in the following Historical Essay on The Survival of Paganism. But those Nationalist Antiquarian Researches had results far more important than even the rewriting of National Histories. It is to these Researches that are due, if not the kindling, certainly all the consuming power, of those aspirations to National Freedom and National Unity, which have been the most revolutionary Political Forces of the century, and which are certainly not even yet played out. Nor will the New Antiquarianism which, in the intellectual sphere, will cause the rewriting, not of mere National Histories, but of the General History of Civilization, be wanting in results correspondingly great in the political sphere. Histories of Civilization which take due account of the results of the Comparative Science of Folk-life and Folk-lore, will be distinctively theories of Economic Development; and the Political Forces, to which these theories will give at once revolutionary heat and determined direction, will aim not merely at National Resurrections, but at Economic Reconstructions. The former must precede the latter; and it is, I confess, but for the sake of the latter that I would do what in me lies to promote the former....