Русское зазеркалье (двуязычная версия)

You definitely know that in medieval British culture, a bard was a professional story teller, verse-maker, music composer, and maybe even an oral historian and genealogist, employed by a patron (such as a monarch or noble), to commemorate one or more of the patron’s ancestors and to praise the patron’s own activities. In simpler terms, a bard was a professional poet and singer whose occupation was to compose and sing verses in honour of the heroic achievements of princes and brave men. This initial reading of the term shouldn’t stop us from seeing some bards as minstrels who were medieval European entertainers. From the sixteenth century onwards, this latter term came to mean a specialist entertainer who sang songs and played musical instruments.

In English, we also use the term to talk about outstanding poets, such as Shakespeare who is known as the bard of Avon. We also might want to very occasionally use this term in order to describe a songwriter who performs his own songs. Yesterday, I came across a question on funtrivia.com that asked, ‘Are there bards today?’ The answer was, ‘Absolutely, though we go by different job titles nowadays mostly. Today we're referred to as “singer-songwriters” or “composer-lyricists” or by some other coupling of terms for musicians who are at home in many areas of creation and performance of songs. Probably the best known living bard is Paul McCartney.’

The last statement is arguable, of course, as your humble lecturer happens to think that the cultural importance of Sir Paul McCartney’s legacy is greatly overestimated. I used to live in Liverpool for almost three years, so I have my rights to say that. What I wanted to say is that our wish to apply the term to singer-songwriters is perfectly justifiable. I guess, though, that in Britain, unlike in the Soviet Union, you would only describe a music performer as a bard if you wanted to emphasise his or her outstanding poetic achievements, so you would only use the term as a ‘title of honour’ of some sort, or probably as an attempt at flattery. I believe this rare use of the term in Western countries has something to do with its origin. A bard, in the initial reading of this word, is a musician who praises victories of heroes, an official propagandist, in terms of today. A minstrel, on the other hand, originally was simply a wandering entertainer, not only a singer, but also a juggler, an acrobat, or a fool. Even though the word ‘fool’ has a specific meaning in this context which disallows us to mistake minstrels for ordinary fools, I do doubt that any of the successful song performers of today would want to enjoy the doubtful pleasure of being called either a propagandist or a fool for Christ.