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Some famous examples are ‘Beowulf’, ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ and ‘The House of The Rising Sun.’* Because a ballad can tell any story, they are a great way of fitting creative writing tasks into your curriculum. Here are some exercises you can use to explore the form: Share some poems which tell stories. Can your class think of any?
Ballads originally became popular in the late medieval period, and were designed to be sung and danced to: the word ‘ballad’ is derived from the Latin balar, ‘to dance’. The ballad form is often used to tell a story: a tragic love story, for instance, or else a tale of adventure and high romance.
- Ballad Definition
- Ballad Examples
- Why Do Writers Choose to Write Ballads?
- Other Helpful Ballad Resources
What is a ballad? Here’s a quick and simple definition: Some additional key details about ballads: 1. The ballad is one of the oldest poetic forms in English. 2. There are so many different types of ballad that giving one strict definition to fit all the variations would be nearly impossible. The simplest way to think of a ballad is as a song or po...
The following examples of ballads show several types of variations of the form. To help highlight the structure of each example, we've highlighted all "A" rhymes in green, "B" rhymes in red, and "C" rhymes in yellow.
As the ballad has undergone major shifts in form and content throughout its centuries-long history, the answer to why poets write ballads question differs, primarily based on the era in which a ballad was written. Folk ballads—the oldest form of ballad—were generally transmitted orally, so the repetitive form of the ballad was helpful for memorizat...
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Ballad poetry tells a story in rhyme. While many sophisticates have disdain for rhyme, they probably have enjoyed a few ballad poems in their time. It turns out that rhyme is a mainstay of the human condition. Translation: we love rhymes! We love them as children, and as human beings of any age.
- “La Belle Dame sans Merci” by John Keats. One of the oldest known English ballad poems, “La Belle Dame sans Merci,” means “The Beautiful Lady Without Mercy.
- “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The longest poem by Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” starts with an elderly sailor stopping a man on the way to a wedding.
- “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe. Edgar Allan Poe weaves the tale of the lovely Annabel Lee. This love song is tragic because Annabel Lee dies, leaving behind her lover to mourn her life.
- “A Red, Red Rose” by Robert Burns. This lyrical ballad compares love to a rose, and Bob Dylan once called it his “single biggest inspiration.” Because it has lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter woven throughout, it fits the literary ballad tradition, even though it is not a narrative poem.
archetypal stories. Examples of Ballads in Popular Music. Most people are familiar with ballads in the form of songs, especially slow and mournful songs about love. Musical ballads typically feature slow rhythm and emotionally evocative lyrics.
Ballad poems are poems that tell a story and are meant to be read to an audience. Learn about the three distinct parts of a ballad poem and enjoy reading examples of ballad poems.
