The Ballad Cycle about the Sold Wife: Circulation and Interpretation Issues

Abstract

This article analyzes the ballad cycle about the sold wife, which directly falls into thetheme of family life, where “groups of types” persist “in a unitary system of relationships.”The motifs of the subject are manifested in a complex range of situations, problems andinterpersonal relationships, framed by specific forms of life, with a focus on revealing therelationships between spouses, lovers, parents and children. The ballad cycle about the soldwife is a frequently attested subject in several peoples: Romanians, Greeks, Bulgarians,Albanians, Serbo-Croats and is characterized by a wide spread in a specific ethnologicalcontext, with a well-developed narrative structure, with typical situations. of life inrevealing the social problems of the southern Danube region. Starting from the idea thatthe ballad of the sold wife is found in three types of ballads, several ballad versions wereanalyzed in the paper, in order to reveal the dramatic realities of historic time, to deepena complexity of feelings, inner feelings, moods, characteristic of the morphology ofthe motif. This article analyzes the ballad cycle about the sold wife, which directly falls into thetheme of family life, where “groups of types” persist “in a unitary system of relationships.”The motifs of the subject are manifested in a complex range of situations, problems andinterpersonal relationships, framed by specific forms of life, with a focus on revealing therelationships between spouses, lovers, parents and children. The ballad cycle about the soldwife is a frequently attested subject in several peoples: Romanians, Greeks, Bulgarians,Albanians, Serbo-Croats and is characterized by a wide spread in a specific ethnologicalcontext, with a well-developed narrative structure, with typical situations. of life inrevealing the social problems of the southern Danube region. Starting from the idea thatthe ballad of the sold wife is found in three types of ballads, several ballad versions wereanalyzed in the paper, in order to reveal the dramatic realities of historic time, to deepena complexity of feelings, inner feelings, moods, characteristic of the morphology ofthe motif.