‘Raise the Song and Strike the Harp’

This chapter explores how ballads of different kinds play a key role in Sir Walter Scott's fictional texts, and in everyday life at the time. Scott's portrayal of minstrelsy in Ivanhoe differs in some ways to that in Waverley, and the novel is set in a different historical period. In Waverley, Scott's new development of the romance genre is linked to creative imagination and the literary tradition – the context in which minstrelsy is explored as a vehicle and metaphor for imagination and tradition. The chapter explains the material and commercial background of the songs. The song repertoire from the early nineteenth century is preserved and survives in bound volumes of music, usually grouped by date or genre, such as at the British Library in London. Matthew Cooke's glee, 'Raise the Song and Strike the Harp', has lyrics that mention the romantic instrument but, furthermore, they set out the role of the bard.