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Broadside entitled 'Dialogue: A Little Comedy of Marriage' |
CommentaryThis comic dialogue begins: 'Dramatis Personæ, - FALKLAND, BELCOUR. / Enter Belcour and Falkland, / Falk. What, Belcou! how are you my friend? you look sad. / Bal. no. do I?' The broadside was published by William Shepherd at the Poet's Box, 182 Overgate, Dundee. It does not carry a price or a date of publication. Marriage was a common source of comedy in broadside ballads and sketches. Ironically, given that men in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries enjoyed far more social freedoms and advantages than women, such broadsides often depicted women getting the better of men or being the dominant partners. This dialogue is typical in making fun of men. It features two men arguing over the merits of their respective fiancées. The punchline to the routine comes when the two discover they are both engaged to the same woman. It is not clear what the connection between the different Poet?s Boxes were. They almost certainly sold each other?s sheets. It is known that John Sanderson in Edinburgh often wrote to the Leitches in Glasgow for songs and that later his brother Charles obtained copies of songs from the Dundee Poet?s Box. There was also a Poet?s Box in Belfast from 1846 to 1856 at the address of the printer James Moore, and one at Paisley in the early 1850s, owned by William Anderson. Broadsides are single sheets of paper, printed on one side, to be read unfolded. They carried public information such as proclamations as well as ballads and news of the day. Cheaply available, they were sold on the streets by pedlars and chapmen. Broadsides offer a valuable insight into many aspects of the society they were published in, and the National Library of Scotland holds over 250,000 of them.
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Probable period of publication:
1880-1900 shelfmark: RB.m.143(059)
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