“I'll plough in front of the eye hospital…”. A new style Ballad

Grynaeus, Tamás (2004) “I'll plough in front of the eye hospital…”. A new style Ballad. Acta Ethnographica Hungarica, 49 (3-4). pp. 343-350. ISSN 1216-9803

Text aethn.49.2004.3-4.11.pdf Restricted to Repository staff only until 30 September 2024. Download (88kB)

Abstract

The hero of new style “hospital ballads” is either the patient or a well-known, highly esteemed eye specialist or head surgeon of a regional hospital. In the ballads, he is usually a real historical person mentioned by name. On the basis of these data, it can be claimed that the ballads were composed in the 20s or 30s of the twentieth century. A fragmentary text, lacking real tragedy of ballads and interwoven with lyric elements, was collected in 1961 in Orosháza (Békés County, South-East Hungary). Some variants of the “hospital ballad” collected earlier and several other variants found later as well as similar pieces show that it must have been a well-known, popular folk poetry genre, at least in the eastern part of the Hungarian language area.

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