The Ballad

The Ballad

Map

Lord Randal

Features

Geordie

Themes

Index

Modern Ballads

The Elfin Knight

Timeline

Literary ballads are narrative poems created by a poet in imitation of the old anonymous folk ballad. Usually the literary ballad is more elaborate and complex; the poet may retain only some of the devices and conventions of the older verse narrative. Literary ballads were quite popular in England during the 19th century. Examples of the form are found in Keats's La Belle Dame sans Merci, Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and Oscar Wilde's The Ballad of Reading Gaol.

Medieval ballads were popular poems produced anonymously and sung with or without accompaniment or dance. They were transmitted orally and written down between the 13th and 14th centuries.

Musical ballads or songs are what most people are familiar with today. They usually feature slow rhythm and emotionally evocative lyrics but there are examples of ballads in numerous genres of pop music, such as rock, soul, country, etc. In the 1960s pop music in general became a space for cultural and political conflict and dialogue.

Broadside ballads were ballads printed on broadsides, single sheets of inexpensive paper printed on one side. They began to appear shortly after the invention of printing in the 15th century and were sold in streets, markets and fairs at an affordable price by ballad mongers who sometimes sang their tunes.

Features

The ballad tells a story, often not as a continuous sequence of events, but as a series of rapid flashes. It usually starts in medias res and provides few details, if any.

Medieval ballads were anonymous, popular poems meant to be sung or recited, with or without musical accompaniment or dance; they were handed down orally and often changed. It is possible to find different versions of a ballad in different time periods or geographical areas.

They were narrated in simple language, full of formulaic phrases, combining narration and dialogue. Narrators usually did not speak in first person nor comment on the emotional content of the story.

A four-line stanza was used, as well as repetition and refrain (a repeated line or group of lines). Other sound devices such as rhyme, alliteration, assonance and consonance were used to increase musicality and makes it easier for minstrels and troubadours to memorise ballads.

Protagonists of ballads are real characters, who often reveal themselves through dialogue and speech, and sometimes also supernatural creatures such as witches, fairies and ghosts.

historical events or tragedies

Themes

crime and punishment

love and domestic tragedy

outlaws

magic and supernatural

border ballads

deeds of local heroes

Geordie

Lord Randal

Scottish folk ballad

Bob Dylan based the structure of his 1962 song A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall on the question and answer form of Lord Randal. Each verse begins with variants of the opening lines of Lord Randal. The song has been interpreted as a reaction to the Cuban Missiles Crises, a 13-day confrontation between the Soviet Union and Cuba on one side and the United States on the other during the Cold War. The 'hard rain' of the title is the poison of nuclear fallout, recalling the poison of the original ballad.

The Elfin Knight

Modern Ballads