The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #157878 Message #4031618
Posted By: GUEST,Pseudonymous
01-Feb-20 - 04:17 PM
Thread Name: Dave Harker, Fakesong
Subject: RE: Dave Harker, Fakesong
@ Lighter: re your last paragraph:
a) Harker does indeed mention Legman, and mostly in the narrow context you indicated earlier in the post in terms of bowdlerization and suppression of erotic texts. See eg p 118. This by the way refers to the 1861 "2nd edition" of ESB, not to the ESPB. Harker has a comment on the values of Child's world in which sadism, murder, butchery and any amount of violence are silently condoned whereas a bit of harmless eroticism has to be hidden away in a Motherwell type reference in the Index.
b) For me, the idea that Harker's book is one in which he attempts to show that 'fakery' of songs was "rampant, cynical and pervasive" misrepresents the book and its aims. I think this point was touched upon earlier in the book. I suppose some people (present company excluded) may get this idea from the title, imagining it to refer to fake songs, when Harker's idea is broader than that.
c) Further, as previously discussed, Harker singles out some antiquarians/researchers, including Motherwell and Ritson, as having a more scholarly approach than others.
So I don't personally feel there is much in the book 'Fakesong' to support the supposition in your last paragraph.