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Ballads are a truly popular art form, because they were designed to be enjoyed by the people, rather than an elite (the upper classes or university-educated). And although ballads enjoyed their heyday some five hundred years ago, there have been some notable twentieth-century examples.
- 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...
- “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.
Ballads, usually have thirteen lines with varying rhyme schemes, and often have frequent rhyme. This rhyming makes the poem more musical and memorable. Plus, as folk songs, ballads are usually suitable lyrics for dance tunes.
Examples of Ballads in Literature. As a literary device and form of narrative verse, balladry represents a melodious form of storytelling. Therefore, the ballad has greatly impacted poetry and poets across time. Here are some examples of ballads in literature and the lasting value of these works.
Beginning in the Renaissance, poets have adapted the conventions of the folk ballad for their own original compositions. Examples of this “literary” ballad form include John Keats’s “La Belle Dame sans Merci,” Thomas Hardy’s “During Wind and Rain,” and Edgar Allan Poe’s “Annabel Lee.”.
Aug 16, 2021 · A ballade is a form of verse that uses poetic turns of phrase to form a compelling narrative over the course of its four stanzas, which follow an established rhyming pattern.
