The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #148467   Message #3853486
Posted By: GUEST,LynnH
06-May-17 - 04:43 AM
Thread Name: Sexual identity & trad folk music
Subject: RE: Sexual identity & trad folk music
It occurs to me that there are some songs which seem to be somewhat ambiguous. By that I mean that whilst the story may be about a man or a woman, the gender of the storyteller is more implied than explicit. I vaguely recall a version of 'The Gardener' as sung by Tim Hart and Maddy Prior where this was the case. One could also consider 'Peggy Gordon' or 'The Week before Easter' to be, with a 21st century reading, ambivalent.

@Gloria: Surely the "conservative moral outlook on social matters" is a product of the times when the songs and stories were created and a 21st. century view of them is, of necessity, distorting.
The Chevalier d'Eon may have lived something like the half of his/her life as a woman but, although he/she died in Britain he/she was at most a bit of scandal for the aristocracy whilst 'the common people' knew nothing of the story. And why all this he/she? I used to have a biography of the Chevalier and, from what I recall, the gender identity was never particularly clear - 'normal' hetero man? Transvestite? Transsexual? All of these at different times according to the situation, the mission.