22 The Ballad: History and Form
“A well-composed song strikes the mind and softens the feelings, and produces a greater effect than a moral work, which convinces our reason, but does not warm our feelings, nor effect the slightest alteration in our habits.”
The Ballad
From music for dance to words to music again -
The Ballad: The History and the Form
With its roots in old Latin ballare, meaning to dance, the term "ballad" - from what I have been able to gather - appeared first in the thirteenth century in the Old French as ballade, meaning dancing song. The ballad was originally a song sung to accompany a dance, and in time, in the seventeenth century, came to refer to a short narrative poem suitable for singing. The ballad is considered as narrative as well as lyrical.
Ballads are found all over the word, and their form and style vary from country to country. Passed from one generation to the next orally, the traditional ballads are not tied to any one poet but told and retold by commoners. Basically a ballad is a poem, often sung as a song, to tell a story of someone or something.
The typical English ballad stanza is a quatrain with a rhyme scheme of abcb. The meter alternates in pattern: iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter. Most ballads have a refrain. The development of plot is central to this form. A single event is introduced and moves through a series of events like a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Ballads are often told with a third person narrator with an observational, impersonal voice. However, the balladeer and express any range of emotion from joy to anger to sadness. Sometimes dialogue is used to move the story along. Popular themes are centered around common domestic life and highlight love, bravery, and supernatural beings.
With the invention of the printing press, more and more of these originally oral works were written down and were prized for entertainment. First published as broadsides, they also appeared in pamphlets, magazines, and newspapers. During the 18th century, these ballads were collected and studied by scholars as historical artifacts. In 1765, Bishop Percy published a collection of ballads called Reliques of Ancient English Poetry. Later, in the late 19th century, Francis Child published a five volume set entitled The English and Scottish Popular Ballads which contains over three hundred different ballads dating from 1200 to 1700 in their various versions. While scholars gained insight into the working class of the Middle Ages through study of these collections, poets were also inspired by them, and with the publication of Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, ballads were used to usher in the Romantic age of literature.
Resources
Berkin, Carol, and Susan Clair Imbarrato. “Ballad.” Encyclopedia of American Literature, Third Edition, Facts On File, 2013. Bloom's Literature, online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=101204&itemid=WE54&articleId=28085. Accessed 16 Sept. 2021.
Boucquey, Thierry. “English Ballad.” Encyclopedia of World Writers, 14th through 18th Centuries, Facts On File, 2005. Bloom's Literature, online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=101204&itemid=WE54&articleId=44254. Accessed 16 Sept. 2021.
Greentree, Rosemary. “Middle English Lyrics and Ballads.” The Facts On File Companion to British Poetry before 1600, Facts On File, 2008. Bloom's Literature, online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=101204&itemid=WE54&articleId=10315. Accessed 16 Sept. 2021.
Ruud, Jay. “Ballad.” Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature, Second Edition, Facts On File, 2014. Bloom's Literature, online.infobase.com/Auth/Index?aid=101204&itemid=WE54&articleId=43886. Accessed 16 Sept. 2021.
Questions
What do you know about ballads?
Have you ever read or listened to a ballad?
Do you have a favorite ballad?
Have you ever written a ballad?
If you were to write a ballad, what or who would be your subject?