The imagined village
Culture, ideology and the English Folk Revival
Georgina Boyes
**** Mojo ****Q Magazine
“fascinating and revealing” - Mojo
“a most welcome reissue of an important volume” – Folk Song Journal
“hugely informative and thought-provoking” - Shreds & Patches
Georgina Boyes’ award-winning book, The Imagined Village: Culture, Ideology and the English Folk Revival has been published in a new, illustrated edition by No Masters Co-operative. Out of print for several years, this comprehensive examination charts the emergence of the Folk Revival movement in England through the determined proselytising of Cecil Sharp and the development of organisations to encourage performance from the Esperance Guild and English Folk Dance Society to the emergence of Folk Clubs, mummers’ teams and Folk Festivals.
Alongside this, however, runs the analysis that The Folk” themselves were a convenient fiction. They and their culture were created and used in the cause of conflicting ideologies – including the Women’s Suffrage movement and British Fascism. Issues of Englishness, class and creativity are all dealt with in this fascinating and controversial history of the Folk, who existed only to sing and dance in an Imagined Village.
The Imagined Village won the Katharine Briggs Folklore Award and was later the inspiration for Simon Emmerson’s musical experiments featuring Martin and Eliza Carthy, Chris Wood, Billy Bragg and others.
REVIEWS
NEW EDITION
“This is a most welcome reissue of an important volume which appeared first in 1993, was reviewed in this journal during that same year, and subsequently won the prestigious Katherine Briggs Folklore Award. It examines in detail the early twentieth century transplantation of the older forms of popular culture – chiefly song and dance (and in particular morris dancing) – into a context which was both more rigid and more controllable. Along the way it lays bare the motives and machinations of the leading architects of this revival, often fought quite bitterly in the pages of the national press. Boyes rightly highlights Joseph Jacobs as almost the sole voice of reason in the late nineteenth century debate concerning the nature and definition of ‘Folk’. Other than a few typographical errors which crept unbidden into the first edition the text remains unchanged, but the new edition contains a mass of photographs and cartoons (some appearing in print for the first time), around thirty in all, which enhance and reinforce the substance of the text. The volume is visually impressive and benefits greatly from being printed on a much better quality stock than the first edition. If you failed to buy it the first time round don’t hesitate to do so now….” Keith Chandler, Folk Song Journal
This is a paperback reprint of the 1993 original which caused quite a stir at the time. In fact, the reprint is causing quite a bit of comment online (e.g. Mudcat). Aside from the welcome inclusion of some lovely plates of early Revival dancers, I didn’t detect any changes from the original.
So what causes all the discussion? At root, I suppose it’s because, firmly in its sights, is the vexed question of “authenticity” (however you care to define it). Some of us care deeply about whether what we’re singing (or playing or dancing) is a fair reflection of (or even approximation to) what one might have found in a village or small town between 100 and 250 years ago. Some of us are merely content with having found an interesting item which matches our competence (or lack of it).
But most of us have at least a vague idea of how the song (or dance, or tune, or story) managed to survive. And this book is, at least in part, aimed at illuminating that vagueness.
The Imagined Village argues that even the prime mover of the Folk Revival, The English Folk Dance Society (and “and Song” was added later) has evolved a myth about it’s [sic] own history, let alone that of the collected material.
The central figures who set the revival in train are examined, not so much in a biographical way, more in terms of elucidating their motives, prejudices and politics, and following the effects of these on the development of the Revival, in particular the EFDSS, its leaders and members.
At the heart of the discussion is the notion of “the Folk” – who they were, did they still exist? From the confusion surrounding this arose all sorts of ills which enfeebled the Revival and left the Society ineffectual. Worse still, the perception gained sway that folk heritage was too precious to be entrusted to “the Folk”.
From there wer proceed to the “second revival” (from about 1950), and again it is the motives, preconceptions and political attitudes and environment which remain in the foreground.
An ungeneralled popular movement which sprang from interest in jazz, blues and the skiffle fad, was completed misread by the folk establishment. Thus the Society which should have led the movement has instead been dragged along behing it, like a tut-tutting maiden aunt. This includes such revolutionary practices as unaccompanied singing.
How ironic, then, that as early as the seventies, Cecil Sharp’s ideas on what constituted folk song were already being trotted out again. When will they ever learn?
A dense read, but hugely informative and thought-provoking, this book has been research (and annotated) with a depth and commitment rare in this field. Georgina’s own attitudes and conclusions you are welcome to embrace or reject, of course. At least, if and when you join this debate, you will be well-informed if you read this book.” Flos Headford, Shreds & Patches
“When Afro Celt Sound System founder Simon Emmerson first gathered ideas for a modern, multi-cultural band playing English folk songs, the only thing set in stone was the name – The Imagined Village. He borrowed it from this book, buying into its controversial central theme that the portrait of jolly ploughboys and rural contentment perennially painted in popular folk song was essentially a myth used by the establishment as part of a broader agenda at a time of radical social change. It’s an argument that sharply divides opinion amont the folk cognoscenti, but Georgina Boyes has compiled a formidable mount of evidence to support the theory….” Colin Irwin, Mojo****
FIRST EDITION
“Just make sure you read this book, it is important.” Ken Hunt, Folk Roots
“… the British Folk Revival – song, dance and custom – has languished without a proper historical treatment. Until now. The Imagined Village authoritatively rights the wrong.” ****Q Magazine
“an effective demolition of many of the myths long entrenched around the ‘English pastoral’ school … a wealth of damning detail… If not the definitive history of the Folk Revival, it’s a book every future historian will need to confront.” Calum MacDonald, The Times Literary Supplement
“…this book is a significant and important study which deserves to be widely read … an important and thought-provoking book, a standard by which future studies will be judged, raising issues which those future studies must address.” Derek Schofield, Folk Music Journal
“The Imagined Village sets out the history of the English Folk Revival as a long a bloody tale of internecine strife and the collision of ideologies, with assorted Fabians, Fascists, Marxists, Romantics and Utopians jostling to plant their pennons on the mild greenswards of Merrie England … [A] lively and arresting book.” Raymond Greenoaken, Stirrings
£12.00 + p&p
Available from http://nomasters.co.uk/shopping/product_info.php?cPath=23&products_id=103
No Masters Co-operative Limited PO Box 209, Leeds, LS12 9BJ
ISBN 978-0-9566227-0-9
pp. xiii + 285, Index, 29 b/w plates, pbk, 145x225mm Second edition