Ballads, Poetic Form Exercise Options

[Cleo_Serapis]

Ballads, in literature, are usually short, narrative poems relating a single, dramatic event. Two forms of the ballad are often distinguished—the folk ballad, dating from about the 12th century, and the literary ballad, dating from the late 18th century.

The Folk Ballad

The anonymous folk ballad, was composed to be sung. It was passed along orally from singer to singer, from generation to generation, and from one region to another. During this progression a particular ballad would undergo many changes in both words and tune. The medieval or Elizabethan ballad that appears in print today is probably only one version of many variant forms.

Primarily based on an older legend or romance, this type of ballad is usually a short, simple song that tells a dramatic story through dialogue and action, briefly alluding to what has gone before and devoting little attention to depth of character, setting, or moral commentary. It uses simple language, an economy of words, dramatic contrasts, epithets, set phrases, and frequently a stock refrain. The familiar stanza form is four lines, with four or three stresses alternating and with the second and fourth lines rhyming. For example:

It was ín and abóut the Mártinmas tíme,
When the gréen léaves were a fálling,
That Sír John Gráeme, in the Wést Countrý,
Fell in lóve with Bárbara Állan

“Bonny Barbara Allan”


It was in the 18th century that the term ballad was used in England in its present sense. Scholarly interest in the folk ballad, first aroused by Bishop Percyy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765), was significantly inspired by Sir Walter Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1802). Francis Child's collection, English and Scottish Popular Ballads (5 vol., 1882–98), marked the high point of 19th-century ballad scholarship.

More than 300 English and Scottish folk ballads, dating from the 12th to the 16th century, are extant. Although the subject matter varies considerably, five major classes of the ballad can be distinguished—the historical, such as “Otterburn” and “The Bonny Earl o' Moray”; the romantic, such as “Barbara Allan” and “The Douglas Tragedy”; the supernatural, such as “The Wife of Usher's Well”; the nautical, such as “Henry Martin”; and the deeds of folk heroes, such as the Robin Hood cycle.

Ballads, however, cannot be confined to any one period or place; similar subject matter appears in the ballads of other peoples. Indigenous American ballads deal mainly with cowboys, folk heroes such as Casey Jones and Paul Bunyan, the mountain folk of Kentucky and Tennessee, the Southern black, and famous outlaws, such as Jesse James:

Jésse had a wífe to móurn for his lífe,
Three chíldren, théy were bráve;
But the dírty little cóward that shót Mister Hóward
Has láid Jesse Jámes in his gráve.

“Ballad of Jesse James”

During the mid-20th century in the United States there was a great resurgence of interest in folk music, particularly in ballads. Singers such as Joan Baez and Pete Seeger included ballads like “Bonny Barbara Allan” and “Mary Hamilton” in their concert repertoires; composer-performers such as Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan wrote their own ballads.

The Literary Ballad

The literary ballad is a narrative poem 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.” In music a ballad refers to a simple, often sentimental, song, not usually a folk song.

source: http://www.factmonster.com

A portion of Oscar Wilde's “The Ballad of Reading Gaol” :

He did not wear his scarlet coat,
For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his hands
When they found him with the dead,
The poor dead woman whom he loved,
And murdered in her bed.

He walked amongst the Trial Men
In a suit of shabby grey;
A cricket cap was on his head,
And his step seemed light and gay;
But I never saw a man who looked
So wistfully at the day.

I never saw a man who looked
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every drifting cloud that went
With sails of silver by.

I walked, with other souls in pain,
Within another ring,
And was wondering if the man had done
A great or little thing,
When a voice behind me whispered low,
"That fellows got to swing."

Dear Christ! the very prison walls
Suddenly seemed to reel,
And the sky above my head became
Like a casque of scorching steel;
And, though I was a soul in pain,
My pain I could not feel.

I only knew what hunted thought
Quickened his step, and why
He looked upon the garish day
With such a wistful eye;
The man had killed the thing he loved
And so he had to die.

Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!

Some kill their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.

Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.

He does not die a death of shame
On a day of dark disgrace,
Nor have a noose about his neck,
Nor a cloth upon his face,
Nor drop feet foremost through the floor
Into an empty place

He does not sit with silent men
Who watch him night and day;
Who watch him when he tries to weep,
And when he tries to pray;
Who watch him lest himself should rob
The prison of its prey.

He does not wake at dawn to see
Dread figures throng his room,
The shivering Chaplain robed in white,
The Sheriff stern with gloom,
And the Governor all in shiny black,
With the yellow face of Doom.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
All that we know who lie in gaol
Is that the wall is strong;
And that each day is like a year,
A year whose days are long.

The vilest deeds like poison-weeds
Bloom well in prison-air:
It is only what is good in Man
That wastes and withers there:
Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate
And the Warder is Despair.

[JustDaniel]

Grandma's Cake

"How 'bout a swig of cooking oil?"
said Grandma to the boy.
He'd come with  Everything's gone wrong!
school, fam'ly, health, my toy!

Yuck!   "Give those two raw eggs a try?"
Gross, Grandma!   he replied.
"Some baking soda, sifted flour?
Salt?”  NO!  he loudly cried.

"Son, all those things taste bad alone.
Together, baked, they're cake!
I'm guessing when it's all cooled down
and frosted, some you'll take?"

"God cares about your troubles, lad.
He sifts, stirs, heats up, frosts.
He knows we're mixed up, poured out, hot.
He knows how much it costs."

"He works all thing together for
the good of those He's loved.
He's called us, destined us ahead.
You think you're pushed and shoved?

"Not e'er without His recipe.
He'll always make us rise!
Your photo's in his wallet, son.
See, you're your Father's prize!

"Let's take a walk and see the flowers
He sent you overnight.
And later on we'll share His sunset,
cake-in-hand.  All Right?"

© Daniel J. Ricketts 10 March 2001 (Revised 05 April 2005)
Thoughts on Romans 8:28

[Guest_Toumai_*]

Dear Daniel,

This is lovely.

So many things seem 'yucky', yet together they weave our life's tapestry - and we can all look forward to each sunriese or set.

Love,
Fran

[JustDaniel]

Thank you, Fran...

And may your sunrise today be as lovely as ours is!

I just had that piece out yesterday to do a bit of modification to it to share with a poetry group last night, along with the following piece... that I'd written as kind or a rant as a minor reaction to one of the members who'd protested the link I'd offered them in preparation for this week's challenge to write a ballad.  So I ranted an ironic piece as response to his ranting:

Ballad, Schmallad!  

Who cares how others used to sing
an’ never wrote it down!
What difference does it make to cling
to ditties sung by clowns?

I sing whate’er, where’er I want
and what I care to chant;
if I sang ballads, they would haunt
my brain, so I just can’t.

Don’t tell me how do it, friend,
‘cause I don’t need no one
to bind me up an’ make me bend.
I sing because it’s fun.

I’ll diddle where I feel like diddlin’;
DUM da DUM my drum.
So leave me be without yer fiddlin’!
Ballad-singin’s dumb!

© Daniel J Ricketts 05 April 2005

[JustDaniel]

Bumping this to compare with BALLADE