James Reeves (1909-1978)

Subject: James Reeves
From: Jack Campin
Date: 31 Jul 18 - 11:17 AM

I am just now looking at a copy of James Reeves's "The Idiom of the People", and it looks pretty darn good, except for not including tunes. I mainly know of him as an editor of John Clare. He produced quite a few books, which get occasional mentions here, but doesn't seem to have a thread of his own yet. So here it is.

Subject: RE: James Reeves
From: RTim
Date: 31 Jul 18 - 11:34 AM

He also wrote - "The Everlasting Circle - English Traditional Verse" - songs from Baring-Gould, Hammond Bros and Dr. George Gardiner collections. First published 1960 - I have a hard-back by Heinemann

Again - No music, but worth having in your library......


Tim Radford

Subject: RE: James Reeves
From: Lighter
Date: 31 Jul 18 - 02:22 PM

His discussion of "the lingua franca of the folk" and "The Foggy, Foggy Dew" in particular is, shall we say, idiosyncratic.

Subject: RE: James Reeves
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 31 Jul 18 - 02:36 PM

I'm with Jon. It was useful at the time having access to those texts but he knew little about the background to the songs.

Subject: RE: James Reeves
From: Joe Offer
Date: 01 Aug 18 - 03:11 AM

The Idiom of the People is a sampler of 115 English folksong texts collected by Sharp. Where else can I find the English folksongs that Sharp collected?

-Joe-

Subject: RE: James Reeves
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 01 Aug 18 - 03:31 AM

Hi Joe, All of Sharp's manuscripts, tunes and texts are on the EFDSS Full English website.

Subject: RE: James Reeves
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 01 Aug 18 - 03:33 AM

I should add, along with all of the other collections of the period and Carpenter.

Subject: RE: James Reeves
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 01 Aug 18 - 05:47 AM

Reeves doesn't just reproduce Sharp's stuff, he had a go at evaluating it.

What did he get wrong, with "The Foggy Foggy Dew" in particular?

Subject: RE: James Reeves
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 01 Aug 18 - 04:49 PM

Well, as you ask, writing in 1958 he mostly made quite a good job of it, as he had a limited number of texts at his disposal, so his comparison of these texts (p45-54), if a little laboured, is reasonable and can't be argued with. However, his following of the romantic line on the meaning of 'foggy dew' (p54 to 57) is somewhat naïve in my opinion. To be fair to him he does state, 'as it stands the song is nonsense' and refers constantly to the 'confusion' and at one point even suggests quite correctly that the title may be a corruption of something else. BUT why follow the romantic line, picked up on by others
and regurgitated? We now of course have a much fuller picture of what the song meant, and it can be argued that he did his best with the material he had. As you say he presents a detailed study of a few of the songs but these are of little use today as we have much more information and many more versions to play with, and we know much more about the evolution of individual songs.

Subject: RE: James Reeves
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 02 Aug 18 - 03:05 AM

" is somewhat naïve in my opinion."
Wonder where I've heard that before Steve!!
'Idiom of the People' is based on the Mss of Sharp, 'Everlasting Circle' on thos of Baring-Gould. Hammond and Gardiner
In my opinion they are both excellent attempts at analysing songs from these collections   
It seems that the work of anybody who wasn't born with a silver computer in their mous is now to be discounted.
Sorry Steve, but I find the patronising tone and smug hindsight that seems to be an essential part of modern modern research somewhat distasteful
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: James Reeves
From: GUEST,Jon Dudley
Date: 02 Aug 18 - 10:35 AM

Only because it is 'a propos' - when I was at school at Lewes in the 1960s, selected 6th form boys were detailed to visit the blind James Reeves at his home in Rotten Row to read him either the daily paper or extracts from books he was sent to review or just wanted to listen to. Sadly I was denied that pleasure, being too hoi poloi in the accent department (and doubtless others too) and the honour went to those like Stephen Coote, later to become an academic of some repute and biographer of poets - even then he sounded like a posher Jacob Rees Mogg - but I liked him. Only later did I realise that he'd written books on folk music and indeed I subsequently inherited copies from dear old Bob Copper.

Subject: RE: James Reeves
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 02 Aug 18 - 01:28 PM

Thankyou for your opinion, Jim!

Subject: RE: James Reeves
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 02 Aug 18 - 01:30 PM

You're very welcome
Jim

Subject: RE: James Reeves
From: John Moulden
Date: 03 Aug 18 - 05:09 PM

Two things - Reeves was a poet, and at that time was promoting the idea that traditional song words could be treated as serious poetry. It was a good idea given the snooty ideas of the 'educated' of the time.
- he was also I think, misunderstood - Gershon Legman ripped pieces out of him, referring to The Everlasting Circle as The Everliving Idiot - Reeves sued the publisher and my copy of The Horn Book contains a disclaimer and an apology.

Subject: RE: James Reeves
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 04 Aug 18 - 02:42 AM

I read both books many years ago. The one thing that I remember is a single phrase "the dross of centuries". Unfortunately I don't remember the context. Was Reeves saying that from large amounts of dross the folk have preserved the few good bits?

Subject: RE: James Reeves
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 04 Aug 18 - 04:29 PM

If he said it in that context can't argue with that!

Subject: RE: James Reeves
From: Joe Offer
Date: 08 Feb 20 - 04:10 PM

In the "Fakesong" thread, Lighter said the following:

> No-one up to Harker, claimed that he and his colleges faked anything

Not quite correct, Jim, though it is certainly true that "fake" is often used invidiously.

The poet James Reeves didn't use it when he published "Idiom of the People "in 1958, which presented the unbowdlerized texts of songs collected by Sharp in England which the publishing constraints of the time forced him to alter, soften, or partially rewrite.

In "The Everlasting Circle" (1960) Reeves did the same for texts collected by Baring-Gould, Hammon, and Gardiner. Though Baring-Gould seems to have been more of a prude than Sharp, he too had to rewrite songs (sometimes extensively) to get them published at all.

That motivated me to pull out my copy of Idiom of the People and take another look...and I also ordered a copy of The Everlasting Circle. The blurb on the back of my 1965 Norton Library edition of Idiom tells a lot:

From Cecil Sharp’s fourteen volumes of English ballads and songs, James Reeves has selected 115 folk poems to show the range and artistry of this idiom. Cecil Sharp, whose great work was the high point of the English folk song movement during the first two decades of this century, faithfully transcribed different versions of these songs as they were sung to him by the country people of Somerset and neighboring counties. In some cases Reeves has reprinted the most complete version to be found in the manuscripts, with additions or variants from other versions mentioned; in other cases he has given composite texts from two or more versions. He has deliberately avoided the temptation to tamper with the grammar, punctuation, or sentence structure so as to preserve the atmosphere as well as the accuracy of the original rendition. In an illuminating introduction, Reeves discusses the folk song movement in England and Cecil Sharp’s place in it, and examines five well-known songs — O No John, Waly Waly, Blow away the Morning Dew, A Brisk Young Lover, and The Foggy Dew — to show the evolutionary course of the folk song: the refinement into the art song, the origins of some songs in ballads, the development of different versions of the same song, and the way in which the meaning of the song can be obscured by time and corruption.
Literary students, folk song collectors, and musicians will find this book an important addition to their libraries.

I haven't spent a whole lot of time with this book, but I learn something new every time I open it.

The Wikipedia biography of Reeves is adequate, but somewhat limited.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: James Reeves (1909-1978)
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 10 Feb 20 - 01:45 PM

Reeves also wrote "Understanding Poetry". I many years ago loaned a copy to a non-specialist who had been given English classes to teach and who said it was an eye-opener. His descriptive poem 'The Sea' was much anthologised in school poetry books at one time.

Subject: RE: James Reeves (1909-1978)
From: GUEST,Jon Dudley
Date: 11 Feb 20 - 05:50 AM

James Reeves, the blind poet, lived in Rotten Row, Lewes. Certain 6th form boys from my grammar school (Lewes County Grammar School for Boys) were selected to go and read for him from the newspapers or of books for review. Unfortunately they only sent the brightest like Stephen Coote (now historical biographer and scholar) so that blew my chances. I would have loved to have met him. His first test of a new book for review was to bend it back upon itself to see if the binding was any good...funny what you remember...

Subject: RE: James Reeves (1909-1978)
From: Stewie
Date: 11 Feb 20 - 07:17 PM

I had a couple of his books back in the day. The only thing that I recall from them is his description of the clientele of coffee shops as 'a sort of spiritual dry rot amid the odour of boiled milk'.

--Stewie.