1. MEDIEVAL BALLADS

2. Origin of Name From French dance songs – i.e. “ballares” or ballet

3. Description A Ballad is a song that tells a story in verse. Because ballads were sung, their content was often changed. Minstrels/troubadours traveled from town to town singing ballads for food, money, lodging. Ballads were the poetry of the people, so they were often sensational.

5. Common Subjects Magic (ghosts, witchcraft, fairies) Border conflict (English vs. Scottish) Love, domestic tragedy Children Outlaws (Robin Hood)

6. CHARACTERISTICS Narrative, tells a story Set to music Depends heavily on dialogue (two people) Plot involves domestic tragedy or the supernatural No editorializing; impersonal tone Refrain and repetition Set rhyme and meter/syllable pattern (quatrain/4) Figurative language (“make my bed soon” = death) Third person, objective narration

7. CHARACTERISTICS No mention of setting Hurried plot No character development Sometimes use question and answer format/call and response Focus on one event

8. Ballads, Old and New http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOzFrZyZi5A Barbara Allen http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBe_vH04ffk Get Up and Bar The Door http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMR55HoeSG4 Lord Randall http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXNNVUuIDgc “If I Ever Fall In Love Again” -Shai http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vST6hVRj2A “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” -Gordon Lightfoot