From Holt 6 th Course, pg. 108 and 111 AP Literature, Mrs. Demangos

 Ballads are songs or songlike poems that tell stories in simple, rhythmic language.  The word ballad is derived from an Old French word meaning “dancing song”  Although the English ballad’s connection with dance has been lost, it is clear from their meter and their structure that the original ballads were composed to be sung to music.

 Virtually every ballad includes certain predictable features, or conventions.  The features, or conventions of a ballad include the following:

1. Sensational, sordid, or tragic subject matter 2. Omitted details 3. Supernatural events 4. A refrain: a repeated word, line, or group of lines. 5. Incremental repetition: to build up suspense a phrase is repeated with a new element each time until the climax is reached. 6. A question-and-answer format: the facts of the story are gleaned little by little from the answers. 7. A strong, simple beat

 The most common stanza form—the ballad stanza—is a quatrain in alternate four-stress and three-stress iambic lines; usually only the second and fourth lines rhyme. The king sits in Dumferling towne, Drinking the blude-red wine: “O Whar will I get a guid sailor, To sail this schip of mine?” from “Sir Patrick Spence” The 2 nd and 4 th lines rhyme

⌣ / ⌣ / ⌣ / ⌣ / The king sits in Dumferling towne, ⌣ / ⌣ / ⌣ / Drinking the blude-red wine: ⌣ / ⌣ / ⌣ / ⌣ / ⌣ “O Whar will I get a guid sailor, ⌣ / ⌣ / ⌣ / To sail this schip of mine?” from “Sir Patrick Spence”

 The ballads we know today probably took their form in the fifteenth century, but they were not printed until Sir Thomas Percy published a number of them in 1765.

 Inspired by Percy, Sir Walter Scott and others traveled around the British Isles and collected the songs from the people who still sang them.