Ballad
Ballads /ˈbaləd/ were first created in medieval France, and the word ballad comes from the French term chanson balladée, which means “dancing song.”
A ballad is a form of narrative verse that is considered either poetic or musical.
Ballads were originally sung or recited as an oral tradition among rural societies, and were often anonymous retellings of local legends and stories by wandering minstrels in the Middle Ages.
These traditional or “folk” ballads are sometimes referred to as “popular” ballads. Literary ballads are deliberate creations by poets in imitation of the form and spirit of traditional ballad.
As ballads were originally meant to be lyrics set to dancing music, there is a noticeable musical quality to the rhythm of the lines.
While there are a number of variations, traditionally a ballad consists of thirteen lines with a varying rhyme scheme.
The typical “ballad meter” was an alternation between lines in iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter. Ballads were generally written in quatrains which is known as “ballad measure,” with a regular rhyme scheme of ABCB. Sometimes they followed the pattern, ABABBCBC with 14 syllables lines.
Common Examples of Subject Matter Found in Ballad
The form of ballads, their meaning, and subject matter have changed over time. Ultimately, as a form of narrative verse, most ballads are associated with some aspect of telling a story. Here are some common examples of subject matter found in ballad:
- tragic romance
- reimagination of legends
- religion, life and death
- recounting of historical events
- the supernatural
- happy love stories
- honor of warriors/soldiers
- despair of poverty
- personal stories
- archetypal stories
For the first few hundred years of their existence, ballads were not necessarily considered “literary,” and were instead a part of the oral storytelling tradition.
The ballad has its origins in the even older storytelling traditions in Scandinavia and Germany, which can be seen as in the epic poem Beowulf.
This tradition arose in the twelfth century and generally had love as their theme at the beginning.
Over time, ballads branched out in their themes, and often featured stories that were tragic, comic, or heroic.
Most ballads focus on one story with a central dramatic event. Ballads became especially popular in the Romantic movement of the eighteenth century with poets such as William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and John Keats.
In general, ballads have fallen out of favor with contemporary poets, but there are still a few new poems being written that fit the definition of ballad.
“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is a famous epic poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and is an excellent ballad example. The above excerpt is the first stanza of the long poem, and features some key aspects of ballads, such as the four-line quatrain and the rhyme scheme of ABCB. The poem tells the story of an old sailor who has returned from his voyaging and wants to share the terrible things he has encountered on the high seas.
“La Belle Dame sans Merci” by John Keats
John Keats’s poem “La Belle Dame sans Merci” is another excellent example of ballad. Like Coleridge, Keats was one of the main poets of the Romantic movement, and idolized the storytelling tradition of ballad, along with the strong emotions therein. We can see the four-line stanzas throughout the poem, as well as the rhyme scheme of ABCB. Keats also uses the three lines of iambic tetrameter in each quatrain, ending each stanza with iambic trimeter, which is just about what the traditional ballad meter was.
“The Song of Wandering Aengus” by William Butler Yeats
Though William Butler Yeats deviates slightly from traditional ballads in “The Song of Wandering Aengus” by using a different rhyme scheme and meter, his poem uses many of the traditions. For example, this three-stanza poem has a narrative about love lost that runs throughout the lines, and features the strong imagery so frequently found in ballads.
“Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allen Poe
Edgar Allen Poe’s tragic poem “Annabel Lee” is a ballad that also deviates slightly from traditional ballads. However, there are some key features such as the narrative about lost love and beautiful natural imagery that make is so that it can be labelled a ballad example. Poe also uses repetition and regular rhyme scheme so that the poem could be set to music if someone wished.
“Gunga Din” by Rudyard Kipling
This ballad example from Rudyard Kipling highlights one of the main features of traditional ballads. Many ballads used colloquialism and local language in their telling, and this is certainly true of “Gunga Din.”
“Casey at the Bat” by Ernest Lawrence Thayer
This is a more modern example of ballad, and is often taught to children. The narrative involved is that of a baseball player named Casey who tries to save his Mudville team from defeat. The “tragedy” of the long rhyming poem is that Casey strikes out rather than scoring any runs.