| • Science | • People | • Locations | • Timeline |
The origin of the word suggested something that could be danced to. Ballads are most often folk poetry in a musical format, passed along orally from generation to generation, set to conventional tunes and usually sung by a solo voice, the hearers joining in the refrain. Until written, the content evolves and changes over time, unlike a more literary poem. For further discussion, see Folk music.
Unlike more traditional poetry, ballads do not use a large amount of explanation. The narrative is usually simple, clear and easy to read. Emotion is usually kept to a minimum, and the motives of characters are rarely probed in any great detail. Dialogue is kept to an economical level, but frequently used to empower the language.
Five of the characteristics of a ballad are:
Repetition and refrains are also used in many ballads. This is a strong resemblance to many forms of traditional music. Many traditional ballads have themes related to the supernatural, and occasionally ballads contain a moral dimension to them, usually expressed in a final verse.
Broadsheet ballads, cheaply printed and often topical, humorous, even mildly subversive, were hawked in English streets from the 16th century; the legends of Robin Hood and the pranks of Puck were disseminated through broadsheet ballads.
Thomas Percy, Robert Harley, Francis James Child, Sir Walter Scott and James Hogg were early collectors and publishers of ballads from the oral tradition and broadsheets. Percy's publication of Reliques of Ancient Poetry and Harley's collections, such as The Bagford Ballads, were of great import in beginning the study of ballads. Some of the collectors also wrote new ballads. Many ballads are referenced in scholarly works by their number in Child's compilation (see the Child BalladsThe Child Ballads are a collection of 305 ballads from England and Scotland, and their American variants, collected by Francis James Child. While the ballads themselves are hundreds of years old, it was only in the later 19th century that Child put them t). The American poet Carl SandburgCarl Sandburg ( January 6, 1878 July 22, 1967), American poet, historian, novelist, and folklorist. He was born in Galesburg, Illinois by Swedish parents and died in Flat Rock, North Carolina. Mencken called Carl Sandburg "indubitably an American in every was influenced by ballads, and published a collection he had assembled as The American Songbag (1927).The form of a ballad has been imitated in modern poetry— most notably by the Canadian ballads of Robert W. ServiceRobert William Service ( January 16, 1874 September 11, 1958) was a poet born into a Scottish family while they were living in Preston, England. He moved to Canada at the age of 21 when he gave up his job working in a Glasgow bank and travelled to Vancouv, in KiplingJoseph Rudyard Kipling ( December 30, 1865 January 18, 1936) was a British author and poet, born in India. He is best known for the children's story The Jungle Book ( 1894), the Indian spy novel Kim ( 1901), the poems " Gunga Din" ( 1892) and " If ( 1895)'s 'Road to Mandalay' or in ' Casey at the BatCasey at the Bat (subtitled "A Ballad of the Republic") is a poem on the subject of baseball, written in 1888 by Ernest Thayer. It was first published in the San Francisco Examiner on June 3, 1888 but was popularized by DeWolf Hopper in many vaudeville pe.' 'The Ballad of the Bread-man', is Charles CausleyCharles Causley ( August 24 1917 November 4 2003) English poet and writer. His work is noted for its simplicity and directness, concerns with Christianity and for its associations with his native Cornwall Biography Causley was born in Launceston in Cornwa's re-telling of the story of the birth of Jesus Christ. Many modern written musical ballads are in the repertory of American folk music.