Editing Cecil Sharp (section)

{{short description|English folklorist and song collector (1859–1924)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2020}}
{{Infobox person
| name               = Cecil Sharp
| image              = Cecil James Sharp (1916, full).jpg
| alt                = <!-- descriptive text for use by speech synthesis (text-to-speech) software -->
| caption            = 
| birth_name         = <!-- only use if different from name -->
| birth_date         = {{Birth date|df=y|1859|11|22}}
| birth_place        = [[Camberwell]], [[Surrey]], England
| death_date         = {{Death date and age|df=y|1924|06|23|1859|11|22}}
| death_place        = [[Hampstead]], [[London]], England
| nationality        = [[England|English]]
| other_names        = 
| occupation         = Folklorist and song collector
| alma_mater         = [[Clare College, Cambridge]]
| years_active       = 
| known_for          = 
| notable_works      = ''English Folk Song: Some Conclusions''
''English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians''
''The Country Dance Book''
| relatives          = [[Evelyn Sharp (suffragist)|Evelyn Sharp]] (sister)
}}

'''Cecil James Sharp''' (22 November 1859 – 23 June 1924)<ref name="LarkinGE">{{cite book|title=[[Encyclopedia of Popular Music|The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music]]|editor=[[Colin Larkin (writer)|Colin Larkin]]|publisher=[[Guinness Publishing]]|date=1992|edition=First|isbn=0-85112-939-0|pages=2238/9}}</ref> was an English collector of folk songs, folk dances and instrumental music, as well as a lecturer, teacher, composer and musician.<ref name="Karpeles">{{cite book |last1=Fox Strangways |first1=A. H. |author-link1=A. H. Fox Strangways |last2=Karpeles |first2=Maud |author-link2=Maud Karpeles |date=1933 |title=Cecil Sharp |location=London |publisher=Oxford University Press}}</ref> He was a key figure in the [[British folk revival#First revival 1890–1920|folk-song revival]] in England during the [[Edwardian]] period.<ref name="Gammon">{{cite book |last=Gammon |first=Vic |date=2003 |editor-last1=Roud |editor-first1=Steve |editor-last2=Upton|editor-first2=Eddie |editor-last3=Taylor |editor-first3=Malcolm |title=Still Growing: Traditional Songs and Singers from the Cecil Sharp Collection |location=London |publisher=English Folk Dance & Song Society |pages=2–22 |chapter=Cecil Sharp and English Folk Music |url= https://www.academia.edu/5310311|isbn=0-85418-187-3}}</ref> According to Roud's ''Folk Song in England'', Sharp was the country's "single most important figure in the study of folk song and music".<ref name="Roud">{{cite book |last=Roud |first=Steve |author-link=Steve Roud |date=2017 |title=Folk Song in England |location=London |publisher=Faber |page=126 |isbn=978-0-571-30971-9}}</ref>

Sharp collected over four thousand folk songs, both in South-West England and the Southern Appalachian region of the United States.<ref>{{cite book |editor-last1=Roud |editor-first1=Steve |editor-last2=Upton|editor-first2=Eddie |editor-last3=Taylor |editor-first3=Malcolm |date=2003 |title=Still Growing: Traditional Songs and Singers from the Cecil Sharp Collection |location=London |publisher=English Folk Dance & Song Society |pages=1–121 |isbn=0-85418-187-3}}</ref><ref name="Yates">{{cite book |editor-last1=Yates |editor-first1=Mike |editor-last2=Bradtke|editor-first2=Elaine |editor-last3=Taylor |editor-first3=Malcolm |date=2017  |title= Dear Companion: Appalachian Traditional Songs and Singers from the Cecil Sharp Collection |location=London |publisher=English Folk Dance & Song Society |pages=1–121 |isbn=978-0-85418-190-2}}</ref><ref name="Peters">{{Cite journal |last=Peters |first=Brian |date=2018 |title=Myths of 'Merrie Olde England'? Cecil Sharp's Collecting Practice in the Southern Appalachians |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44987648 |journal=Folk Music Journal |volume=11 |issue=3 |pages=6–46 |jstor=44987648}}</ref> He published an extensive series of songbooks based on his fieldwork, often with piano arrangements, and wrote an influential theoretical work, ''English Folk Song: Some Conclusions''.<ref name="EFSSC">{{cite book |last=Sharp |first=Cecil |date=1907 |title=English Folk Song: Some Conclusions |location=London |publisher=Simpkin; Novello }}</ref> He notated examples of English [[Morris dance|Morris dancing]], and played an important role in the revival both of the Morris and [[English country dance]]. In 1911, he co-founded the English Folk Dance Society, which was later merged with the Folk-Song Society to form the [[English Folk Dance and Song Society]].

Cecil Sharp's musical legacy extends into English orchestral music, and the classroom singing experienced by generations of schoolchildren. Many of the most popular musicians of the British Folk Revival from the 1960s to the present day have used songs collected by Sharp in their work. Scores of Morris dance teams throughout England, and also abroad, demonstrate the resilience of the revival he played a large part in sustaining. In the US, the [[Country Dance and Song Society]] was founded with Sharp's support, and dancers there continue to participate in styles he developed.

Over the last four decades, Sharp's work has attracted heated debate, with claims and counter-claims regarding selectivity, nationalism, appropriation, bowdlerisation and racism.<ref name= "Gammon"/><ref name="Peters"/><ref name="Harker">{{cite book |last=Harker |first=Dave |date=1985 |title=Fakesong: The Manufacture of British Folk Song, 1700 to the Present Day|location=Milton Keynes, Philadelphia |publisher=Open University Press |isbn=0-335-15066-7}}</ref><ref name="Boyes">{{cite book |last=Boyes |first=Georgina |date=1993 |title=The Imagined Village: Culture, Ideology and the English Folk Revival |location=Manchester |publisher=Manchester University Press |isbn=0719045711}}</ref><ref name="Bearman1">{{cite journal |last=Bearman |first=Christopher |date=2000 |title=Who Were the Folk? The Demography of Cecil Sharp's Somerset Singers |journal=Historical Journal |volume= 43 |pages=751–775|doi=10.1017/S0018246X99001338 |s2cid=162191258 }}</ref><ref name="Bearman2">{{cite journal |last=Bearman |first=Christopher |date=2002 |title=Cecil Sharp in Somerset: Some Reflections on the Work of David Harker |journal=Folklore |volume=113 |pages=11–34|doi=10.1080/00155870220125426 |s2cid=162196897 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Gregory |first=David |date=2009 |title=Fakesong in an imagined village? A Critique of the Harker-Boyes thesis |journal=Canadian Folk Music |volume= 43 |pages=18–26}}</ref>