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Reviews of
Lighting The Fire
Elsie J. Oxenham, the Abbey Girls and the English Folk Dance Revival
by Allison ThompsonFolly (Friends of Light Literature for the Young) | Society of Folk Dance Historians
From a review by Jane Read in Folly (Friends Of Light Literature for the Young) (Number 25, November 1998) ...
[In Lighting The Fire] the Abbey Girls, the Hamlet Club and the English Folk Dance revival are each discussed in turn; it is suggested that "the Abbey Girls novels provide an easy avenue for modern readers to experience the excitement of the early years of the folk dance revival...one can feel the thrilling sense of purpose, of vision, that Cecil Sharp apparently inculcated in his devotees." The books provide a wealth of detail about the range of dances (and songs) available in the early days, and a glimpse of the "public" face of EFDS.Thompson is not blind to Oxenham's faults: she describes the books as "profoundly conservative in a late Victorian way." However, she maintains that "Oxenham writes movingly about the beauty of dance," and suggests that Oxenham uses dance as a means of aesthetic expression, something which is intertwined with daily life....She also provides a very interesting analysis of Oxenham's "moral" standard (as expressed in the books).
For me, one the most entertaining aspects of this book was finding the points I'd noticed as well--the emphasis on correct style, the very bossy teachers (public humiliation has since gone out of fashion as a teaching aid) and the need to get certificated; folk dancing has changed since the 1920s, in Britain and America....Thompson does understand the books' lasting appeal to dancers: "Oxenham wrote so well...about the pleasures of dancing, many passages still resonate for the dancer of today..."
This is a well-written and entertaining book which I thoroughly enjoyed reading. It works on two levels for an Oxenham fan: as a concise summary of the folk-dancing background to the Abbey books, and as a critique of the way in which Elsie Oxenham uses folk-dancing themes to make moral and/or aesthetic points. Definitely worth having....
Reviewed by Ron Houston, The Society of Folk Dance Historians Report to Members, December 31, 1998.
Lighting The Fire presents an incredibly evocative, well-researched and affordable (!) view of early 20th century English folk dancing as portrayed in novels by the still-popular Elsie J. Oxenham (pen name of Elsie Jeanette Dunkerley (1880-1960)).Read a Description | View the Table of Contents
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