Department of English

Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University


 

Ballad

 

Definitions




Ballad Stanzas

Quatrain

Lord Randal wight, on a summer's night,
    Was riding o'er the lee,
And there he saw a bonny birdie
    Was singin' on a tree:
(Child, English and Scottish Ballads, vol. 2, 23)

 




Introduction


Goethe, who saw so many things with such clearness of vision, brought out the charm of the popular ballad for readers of a later day in his remark that the value of these songs of the people is to be found in the fact that their motives are drawn directly from nature; and he added, that in the art of saying things compactly, uneducated men have greater skill than those who are educated. [...] No other form of verse has, therefore, in so great a degree, the charm of freshness. In material, treatment, and spirit, these ballads are set in sharp contrast with the poetry of [end of page 7] the hour. They deal with historical events or incidents, with local traditions, with personal adventure or achievement. They are, almost without exception, entirely objective.


—Hamilton W. Mabie, "Introduction," A Book of Old English Ballads (New York: Macmillan, 1896): 7–28.







 

Vocabulary

folk, popular, traditional ballad
broadside ballad
lyrical, literary ballad
anonymous
oral
song
narrative
impersonal, objective
dramatic
tragic, tragedy
simple, simplicity

dialogue
stanza
quatrain
couplet
iambic tetrameter
iambic trimeter
refrain
incremental repetition
stock phrases
rhythm
rhyme
rhyme scheme
death
love
the supernatural
legend



 

 


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Last updated November 15, 2016