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

2.  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.

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

4. 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

5.  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

6. ⌣ / ⌣ / ⌣ / ⌣ / 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”

7.  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.

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