With the sad passing of
Pete Seeger on Tuesday, the lament for a lost generation –
Where Have All the Flowers Gone – will have been played more often than usual in homes across the world this week.
What listeners may not realize is that Seeger's famous protest song belongs to an extremely ancient literary tradition known as the 'ubi sunt theme'.
Dr Chris Jones, from the
School of English, discusses the use of this rhetorical device in Pete Seeger's song, in Anglo-Saxon and Latin medieval poetry, and in the work of the rapper Nas, on
Radio 3's,
The Verb, Friday, 31 January 2014, at 10pm. Tune in to find out more!
