August, 2020 | Chris Aldrich

Watched The Celtic World, Lecture 23: Celtic Music and Dance by Jennifer Paxton from The Great Courses

Celtic instruments come to life in this lecture. Take a music lesson and learn about the carnyx, a war trumpet; the bodhrán, a hand drum; and the crwth, a lyre played with a bow. Treat your ears to samples of these and beautiful Irish singing, then watch clips of delightful Celtic dances based on classic traditions.

96% done with the series.

Watched The Celtic World, Lecture 24: The Celts Today by Jennifer Paxton from The Great Courses

In the final lecture, end your 2,500-year journey with the Celts by considering the Celtic nations in the 21st century. Bilingualism, modern Celtic pop culture, and renewed nationalist groups pushing for politcal autonomy are merely the tip of the iceberg in this satisfying conclusion to a truly epic history of culture, politics, and warfare.

Read - Finished Reading: The Celtic World by Jennifer Paxton (The Great Courses)

When you hear the word “Celtic,” which images come to mind? These days it could easily be Braveheart, kilts, leprechauns, and St. Patrick’s Day. However, since the surge of interest and pride in Celtic identity since the 19th century, much of what we thought we knew about the Celts has been radically transformed. From the warriors who nearly defeated Julius Caesar to Irish saints who took on the traits of Celtic deities, get to know the real Celts.

In The Celtic World, discover the incredible story of the Celtic-speaking peoples, whose art, language, and culture once spread from Ireland to Austria. This series of 24 enlightening lectures explains the traditional historical view of who the Celts were, then contrasts it with brand-new evidence from DNA analysis and archeology that totally changes our perspective on where the Celts came from. European history and culture have been profoundly affected by the Celts, from the myth of King Arthur to the very map of the United Kingdom, where the English confronted the peoples of the “Celtic Fringe.”

With a wealth of historical expertise, Professor Jennifer Paxton, Director of the University Honors Program and Clinical Assistant Professor of History at The Catholic University of America, guides you through each topic related to Celtic history with approachability and ease as you unearth what we once thought it meant—and what it may actually mean—to be Celtic. Professor Paxton’s engaging, often humorous delivery blends perfectly with the facts about the Celts to uncover surprising historical revelations. The ancient Celts are very much alive in the literary and artistic traditions that their descendants have both preserved and very deliberately revived. All facets of Celtic life, past and present, are addressed by Professor Paxton, who demonstrates a masterful knowledge and carefully separates fact from myth at every turn.

Brief review

I loved the first 3/4ths the most for their density and my lack of general familiarity. The end was a bit less dense and went to quickly. Overall this was a great introduction with a lot of cultural sensitivity and nuance. I really appreciate some of the modern coverage and overview which is sometimes difficult to find without a lot of additional political baggage.

Perhaps I missed it in the introduction, but it would have been nice to have a bit more of Dr. Paxton’s personal background. It wasn’t until late in the series that she mentioned growing up in Ireland and being “forced” to learn Irish in school. A bit more on her background and biases would have been nice to have, though generally her love for the subject and her general objective balance seems to shine through.

She did a particularly good job of highlighting some of the cultural highlights rooted in falsehoods or popularized writing which isn’t historically correct. She seems to give a lot of balance to prior historical research and broad views versus more current scholarship.

Read Child Ballads (Wikipedia)

The Child Ballads are 305 traditional ballads from England and Scotland, and their American variants, anthologized by Francis James Child during the second half of the 19th century. Their lyrics and Child's studies of them were published as The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. The tunes of most of the ballads were collected and published by Bertrand Harris Bronson in and around the 1960s.

Burl Ives’s 1949 album, The Return of the Wayfaring Stranger, for example, includes two: “Lord Randall” and “The Divil and the Farmer”. ❧

Annotated on August 04, 2020 at 08:59AM

In 1956 four albums (consisting of eight LPs) of 72 Child Ballads sung by Ewan MacColl and A.L. Lloyd were released: The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, Vols. 1–4. ❧

Annotated on August 04, 2020 at 09:05AM

Illustration by Arthur Rackham of Child Ballad 26, “The Twa Corbies” ❧

Annotated on August 04, 2020 at 09:06AM

Joan Baez sang ten Child ballads distributed among her first five albums, the liner notes of which identified them as such. ❧

Annotated on August 04, 2020 at 09:07AM

Read Francis James Child (Wikipedia)

Francis James Child (February 1, 1825 – September 11, 1896) was an American scholar, educator, and folklorist, best known today for his collection of English and Scottish ballads now known as the Child Ballads. Child was Boylston professor of rhetoric and oratory at Harvard University, where he produced influential editions of English poetry. In 1876 he was named Harvard's first Professor of English, a position which allowed him to focus on academic research. It was during this time that he began work on the Child Ballads. The Child Ballads were published in five volumes between 1882 and 1898. While Child was primarily a literary scholar with little interest in the music of the ballads, his work became a major contribution to the study of English-language folk music.

Interesting that Johns Hopkins tried to recruit him and Harvard created a new position and title in an effort to keep him.

Child considered that folk ballads came from a more democratic time in the past when society was not so rigidly segregated into classes, and the “true voice” of the people could therefore be heard. He conceived “the people” as comprising all the classes of society, rich, middle, and poor, and not only those engaged in manual labor as Marxists sometimes use the word. ❧

Annotated on August 04, 2020 at 09:31AM

Though there were no graduate schools in America at the time, a loan from a benefactor, Jonathan I. Bowditch, to whom the book was dedicated, enabled Child to take a leave of absence from his teaching duties to pursue his studies in Germany. There Child studied English drama and Germanic philology at the University of Göttingen, which conferred on him an honorary doctorate, and at Humboldt University, Berlin, where he heard lectures by the linguists Grimm and was much influenced by them. ❧

Annotated on August 04, 2020 at 09:33AM

Elizabeth Freeman (Mum Bett), the first enslaved African American to sue for her freedom in the courts based on the law of the 1780 constitution of the state of Massachusetts, which held that “all men are born free and equal.” The Jury agreed and in 1781 she won her freedom. Her lawyer had been Theodore Sedgwick. ❧

Annotated on August 04, 2020 at 09:35AM