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“The Appalachian Murder Ballad: An American Search for Transcendence” discusses the evolution of the ballad form, inherited by America from Europe. Many Appalachian ballads broke from the European tradition in form and content, essentially creating a subgenre: the lyrical ballad (related but not identical to the form championed by Romantic poets Wordsworth and Coleridge). Still a narrative folksong, the American lyrical ballad features non-objective narrators, non-narrative lyrics, and credited songwriters. The paper shows how these ballads incorporated socioeconomic and religious ideologies, blues influences, and supernatural and grotesque elements to manifest a search for emotional expression and transcendence in Appalachian culture.
