Ballad Basics

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Ballad Basics

• A ballad is a lively storytelling form of poetry.

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• Ballads start quickly, without much introduction
  or narration, as in the famous opening of Sir
  Patrick Spens
• The king sits in Dumfeling town
• Drinking the blude-reid wine
• O where will I get a good sailor
• To sail this ship of mine?
• Many questions are raised in just these four
  lines.

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• Ballads often jump from scene to scene as they
  move from stanza to stanza, without much
  exposition or narrative to connect the events.

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• Often, ballads use dialogue, rather than
  narration, to advance the plot.

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• Ballads often feature repeated refrain-lines,
  which may be nonsense (fol-de-rol-de-folly-o)
  or details that the poet returns to obsessively
  (in this kingdom by the sea).

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• The narrator generally remains anonymous and
  unidentified, so that our focus is on the story
  rather than the story-teller.

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The Ballad Stanza Feel the Beat!

• First Whats an iamb?
• Sam-I-Am Will.I.Am
• I do not like green eggs and ham
• I do not like them, Sam-I-Am
• Copy this phrase down in your notes and use
  scansion marks to demonstrate the stressed and
  unstressed syllables.
• Lets do it together on the board!

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The Ballad Stanza Feel the Beat!

• A ballad stanza in a poem
• Has lines as long as these.
• In measuring the lines, we find
• We get both fours and threes.
• Use scansion marks to identify the stressed and
  unstressed syllables.
• How many stressed syllables are there in each
  line?
• This is known as the ballad stanza!

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The Ballad Stanza Feel the Beat

• The famous ballad stanza the Chevy Chase
  stanza
• God prosper long our noble king,
• Our liffes and saftyes all!
• A woefull hunting once there did
• In Chevy Chase befall.

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The Ballad Stanza Feel the Beat!

• The Ballad of Gilligans Isle!
• Use scansion marks to note stressed and
  unstressed syllables on your lyrics sheet.
• Besides the form used (the ballad stanza) in what
  other ways is this song a ballad?

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Homework

• Listen to Amazing Grace.
• Use scansion marks to note stressed and
  unstressed syllables. (This should be very easy
  after todays lesson!)
• Write one to two paragraphs about how this song
  functions as a traditional ballad.