Welcome to the world of Breton songs diffused by means of popular printed matter (broadsheets, press cuttings, booklets, copies ...). It’s more or less what is known in France as hawker literature, chapbook...
Alongside the Breton repertoire of oral tradition and often in reciprocal interaction with it, a vast repertoire in Breton and French was composed and distributed, initially through inexpensive, sometimes even free, printedmatter. Composed for singing, thereby helping better memorisation, many of these pieces, in their turn, have entered the oral tradition.
This repertoire reflects a many-faceted image of society and its preoccupations. It gives voice to the illiterate as well as to educated people, to the underclass as well as to the elite. It’s topics are abundant: from news in brief to great events, from praise to satire, from daily life to prognostications of all varieties ...
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