It is, all the same, the frisson of madness that is prominent and Crazy Jane takes her place in a line of characters. The language is but slightly heightened in what might seem to have been a mild outburst and, in content, the piece is not far removed from songs about maidens who pined for their lovers, departing or lost, or who died for love, common enough themes in traditional song and in other song circles, as will be seen. Indeed, it is this popular aftermath that brought the poem and its tunes (and their relationship with the Hurd ballad) into the limelight.įirst: the text and some of its history after publication. The alarm naturally excited in the breast of the lady, at a meeting so startling - possibly exaggerated by the imagination of Lewis - threw an air of romance over the adventure, which, suffused into the poem, gained for it a degree of popularity scarce yet abated. the encounter with a poor woman occurred, which gave rise to the well-known ballad of 'Crazy Jane'. 4 Lewis and Lady Charlotte, walking in the grounds of Inverary castle, came across a maniac: The more exact spur to Lewis's imagination is described in a book, by a Margaret Baron-Wilson, The Life and Correspondence Of M. It seems that he fell in love with the Duke's daughter, Lady Charlotte, but without a potentially happy ending for Lewis.
Lewis, it should be said, was well-enough acquainted with 'high' society. The circumstances for its composition came about during one of Lewis's frequent visits to the Duke of Argyll's estate at Inverary. The first is his novel The Monk, published in 1794, a startling product of Gothic imagination which led to a degree of fame and notoriety for him and the assumption of the soubriquet 'Monk' after the title of the novel. The original impulse for Crazy Jane came from Matthew Gregory 'Monk' Lewis (1775-1818), best known for two works. This current article has its genesis in considering the tune linked with Crazy Jane that Hurd adopted for his 1817 broadside ballad, The death of the Princess Charlotte. To begin, then, at a kind of beginning: the ballad of Crazy Jane was cited in the Hurd piece appearing on this site recently. Readers with access to local newspapers of the period should be able to test this out. If references to Crazy Jane and related material as presented below were to be computed with those in other newspapers, the popularity of Crazy Jane may well be extended even more. But there may be other newspapers that appeared during the early decades of the nineteenth century during the general period of the exposure of Crazy Jane up until the 1830s. Newspaper references are extracted from those newspapers accessible to the writer. One other point should be made at the outset. Some of these characters have resisted attempts to outline their lives.
For example, the names of a large number of performers in various theatres are canvassed and some small detail in text or in notes added, though without any extensive descriptions of careers which, in any case, are, for the most part, peripheral in nature. It is hoped that the relevant broadside balladry still forms a prominent feature and that links can be observed with previous discussions but there is sometimes an inevitable in-balance as subjects and characters intervene. In this article a tangle of popular cultures is exposed both directly and indirectly and a number of possible avenues for exploration revealed: simply too many for immediate pursuit. 44: Notes on the death and life of Crazy Jane 1 Glimpses into the nineteenth century broadside ballad trade No.
#Lyrics to ballad of jane full
They appear in full at the end of the piece. Note: place cursor on red asterisks for footnotes.Ī good number of the footnotes to this article are too long to appear in these pop-ups.
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