art of the literary ballad
...publication of Joseph Addison’s three Spectator papers cautiously defending “the darling Songs of the common People” crystallized in 1765 with the publication of Thomas Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, a collection of English and Scottish traditional ballads. The Reliques and a flood of subsequent collections, including Sir Walter Scott’s Minstrelsy...
TITLE: ballad: Literary ballads
SECTION: Literary ballads
...(1719), perhaps the earliest literary attempt at a folk ballad, was dishonestly passed off as a genuine product of tradition. After the publication of Thomas Percy’s ballad compilation Reliques of Ancient English Poetry in 1765, ballad imitation enjoyed a considerable vogue, which properly belongs in the history of poetry rather than balladry.