Ring, Ring de Banjo is a minstrel song written in 1851. The song's words and music are from Stephen Foster.
| "Ring, Ring de Banjo" | |
|---|---|
| Song | |
| Published | 1851 |
| Songwriter(s) | Stephen Foster |
The song, written to mimic the dialect of Black people in the Southern United States, is about a newly-freed slave who wishes to come back to his master's plantation. As his old master is dying, the singer plays the banjo on his old master's deathbed until he dies.[1] It is one of "minstrelsy's most explicit evocations of the potentially violent relationship in slavery between master and slave"[2] and inspired a number of imitators, including the abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe.[3]
References
edit- ^ Hall, Dennis; Hall, Susan G. (2006). American Icons. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 47. ISBN 978-0-313-02767-3.
- ^ Walker, Janet (2001). Westerns: Films Through History. Psychology Press. p. 173. ISBN 978-0-415-92424-5.
- ^ Starr, S. Frederick (2000). Louis Moreau Gottschalk. University of Illinois Press. p. 147. ISBN 978-0-252-06876-8.