Ballad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French chanson balladée or ballade, which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and song of Britain and Ireland from the Late Middle Ages until the 19th century. They were widely used across Europe, and later in Australia, North Africa, North America and South America.
While ballads have no prescribed structure and may vary in their number of lines and stanzas, many ballads employ quatrains with ABCB or ABAB rhyme schemes, the key being a rhymed second and fourth line. Contrary to a popular conception, it is rare if not unheard-of for a ballad to contain exactly 13 lines. Additionally, couplets rarely appear in ballads.
Many ballads were written and sold as single-sheet
Origins
A ballad is a form of verse, often a
Ballad form
Ballads were originally written to accompany dances, and so were composed in
The horse | fair Ann | et rode | upon |
He amb | led like | the wind |,
With sil | ver he | was shod | before,
With burn | ing gold | behind |.[2]
There is considerable variation on this pattern in almost every respect, including length, number of lines and rhyming scheme, making the strict definition of a ballad extremely difficult. In southern and eastern Europe, and in countries that derive their tradition from them, ballad structure differs significantly, like Spanish romanceros, which are
Ballads usually are heavily influenced by the regions in which they originate and use the common dialect of the people. Scotland's ballads in particular, both in theme and language, are strongly characterised by their distinctive tradition, even exhibiting some pre-Christian influences in the inclusion of supernatural elements such as travel to the Fairy Kingdom in the Scots ballad "Tam Lin".[8] The ballads do not have any known author or correct version; instead, having been passed down mainly by oral tradition since the Middle Ages, there are many variations of each. The ballads remained an oral tradition until the increased interest in folk songs in the 18th century led collectors such as Bishop Thomas Percy (1729–1811) to publish volumes of popular ballads.[5]
In all traditions most ballads are narrative in nature, with a self-contained story, often concise, and rely on imagery, rather than description, which can be tragic, historical, romantic or comic.[6] Themes concerning rural labourers and their sexuality are common, and there are many ballads based on the Robin Hood legend.[9] Another common feature of ballads is repetition, sometimes of fourth lines in succeeding stanzas, as a refrain, sometimes of third and fourth lines of a stanza and sometimes of entire stanzas.[2]
Composition
Scholars of ballads have been divided into "communalists", such as Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) and the Brothers Grimm, who argue that ballads are originally communal compositions, and "individualists" such as Cecil Sharp, who assert that there was one single original author.[4] Communalists tend to see more recent, particularly printed, broadside ballads of known authorship as a debased form of the genre, while individualists see variants as corruptions of an original text.[10] More recently scholars have pointed to the interchange of oral and written forms of the ballad.[11]
Transmission
The transmission of ballads comprises a key stage in their re-composition. In romantic terms this process is often dramatized as a narrative of degeneration away from the pure 'folk memory' or 'immemorial tradition'.[12] In the introduction to Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1802) the romantic poet and historical novelist Walter Scott argued a need to 'remove obvious corruptions' in order to attempt to restore a supposed original. For Scott, the process of multiple recitations 'incurs the risk of impertinent interpolations from the conceit of one rehearser, unintelligible blunders from the stupidity of another, and omissions equally to be regretted, from the want of memory of a third.' Similarly, John Robert Moore noted 'a natural tendency to oblivescence'.[13]
Classification
European Ballads have been generally classified into three major groups: traditional, broadside and literary. In America a distinction is drawn between ballads that are versions of European, particularly British and Irish songs, and 'Native American ballads', developed without reference to earlier songs. A further development was the evolution of the blues ballad, which mixed the genre with Afro-American music. For the late 20th century the music publishing industry found a market for what are often termed sentimental ballads, and these are the origin of the modern use of the term 'ballad' to mean a slow love song.
Traditional ballads
The traditional, classical or popular (meaning of the people) ballad has been seen as beginning with the wandering
Early collections of English ballads were made by Samuel Pepys (1633–1703) and in the Roxburghe Ballads collected by Robert Harley, (1661–1724), which paralleled the work in Scotland by Walter Scott and Robert Burns.[14] Inspired by his reading as a teenager of Reliques of Ancient English Poetry by Thomas Percy, Scott began collecting ballads while he attended Edinburgh University in the 1790s. He published his research from 1802 to 1803 in a three-volume work, Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. Burns collaborated with James Johnson on the multi-volume Scots Musical Museum, a miscellany of folk songs and poetry with original work by Burns. Around the same time, he worked with George Thompson on A Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs for the Voice.[15]
Both Northern English and Southern Scots shared in the identified tradition of
It has been suggested that the increasing interest in traditional popular ballads during the eighteenth century was prompted by social issues such as the enclosure movement as many of the ballads deal with themes concerning rural laborers.[17] James Davey has suggested that the common themes of sailing and naval battles may also have prompted the use (at least in England) of popular ballads as naval recruitment tools.[18]
Key work on the traditional ballad was undertaken in the late 19th century in Denmark by
Broadsides
Broadside ballads (also known as 'broadsheet', 'stall', 'vulgar' or 'come all ye' ballads) were a product of the development of cheap print in the 16th century. They were generally printed on one side of a medium to large sheet of poor quality paper. In the first half of the 17th century, they were printed in black-letter or gothic type and included multiple, eye-catching illustrations, a popular tune title, as well as an alluring poem.
Literary ballads
Literary or lyrical ballads grew out of an increasing interest in the ballad form among social elites and intellectuals, particularly in the
Ballad operas
In the 18th century ballad operas developed as a form of
The first, most important and successful was
In the 20th century, one of the most influential plays, Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's (1928) The Threepenny Opera was a reworking of The Beggar's Opera, setting a similar story with the same characters, and containing much of the same satirical bite, but only using one tune from the original.[34] The term ballad opera has also been used to describe musicals using folk music, such as The Martins and the Coys in 1944, and Peter Bellamy's The Transports in 1977.[35] The satiric elements of ballad opera can be seen in some modern musicals such as Chicago and Cabaret.[36]
Beyond Europe
American ballads
Some 300 ballads sung in North America have been identified as having origins in Scottish traditional or broadside ballads.
Blues ballads
The blues ballad has been seen as a fusion of Anglo-American and Afro-American styles of music from the 19th century. Blues ballads tend to deal with active protagonists, often anti-heroes, resisting adversity and authority, but frequently lacking a strong narrative and emphasising character instead.
Bush ballads
The ballad was taken to Australia by early settlers from Britain and Ireland and gained particular foothold in the rural
Sentimental ballads
Sentimental ballads, sometimes called "tear-jerkers" or "drawing-room ballads" owing to their popularity with the middle classes, had their origins in the early "
See also
- Alfred Perceval Graves
- Corrido and Narcocorrido
- List of the Child Ballads
- List of folk song collections
- List of Irish ballads
- List of rock ballads
- Murder ballad
- Roud Folk Song Index
- Song structure (popular music)
- Torch song
- Vaar
Citations
- ^ Apel, Willi (December 20, 1944). "Harvard Dictionary Of Music" – via Internet Archive.
- ^ a b c d e J. E. Housman, British Popular Ballads (1952, London: Ayer Publishing, 1969), p. 15.
- ^ A. Jacobs, A Short History of Western Music (Penguin 1972, 1976), p. 20.
- ^ a b c A. N. Bold, The Ballad (Routledge, 1979), p. 5.
- ^ a b c "Popular Ballads", The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century, p. 610.
- ^ a b D. Head and I. Ousby, The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English (Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 66.
- ABC-CLIO, 1997), p. 81.
- ^ "Popular Ballads" The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century, pp. 610-17.
- ^ "Songs of Protest, Songs of Love: Popular Ballads in Eighteenth-Century Britain | Reviews in History". www.history.ac.uk. Retrieved 2017-12-12.
- ^ M. Hawkins-Dady, Reader's Guide to Literature in English (Taylor & Francis, 1996), p. 54.
- ^ a b c T. A. Green, Folklore: An Encyclopedia of Beliefs, Customs, Tales, Music, and Art (ABC-CLIO, 1997), p. 353.
- ^ Ruth Finnegan, Oral Poetry: Its Nature, Significance and Social Context (Cambridge University Press, 1977), p. 140.
- ^ "The Influence of transmission on the English Ballads", Modern Language Review 11 (1916), p. 387.
- ^ a b B. Sweers, Electric Folk: The Changing Face of English Traditional Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 45.
- ISBN 978-1-4616-7417-7. Retrieved August 30, 2017.
- ^ D. Gregory, '"The Songs of the People for Me": The Victorian Rediscovery of Lancashire Vernacular Song', Canadian Folk Music/Musique folklorique canadienne, 40 (2006), pp. 12-21.
- ^ Robin Ganev,Songs of Protest, Songs of Love: Popular Ballads in 18th Century Britain
- ^ "Talk examines ballads and naval recruitment in the 18th century - 2011 News - Articles - News - University of Greenwich Business and Enterprise". Archived from the original on 2012-10-24. Retrieved 2012-08-07.
- ^ T. A. Green, Folklore: An Encyclopedia of Beliefs, Customs, Tales, Music, and Art (ABC-CLIO, 1997), p. 352.
- ^ Thomas J. Joudrey, "Against Communal Nostalgia: Reconstructing Sociality in the Pornographic Ballad," Victorian Poetry 54.4 (2017).
- ^ E. Nebeker, "The Heyday of the Broadside Ballad", English Broadside Ballad Archive, University of California-Santa Barbara, retrieved 15 August 2011.
- ^ G. Newman and L. E. Brown, Britain in the Hanoverian Age, 1714–1837: An Encyclopedia (Taylor & Francis, 1997), pp. 39-40.
- ^ B. Capp, 'Popular literature', in B. Reay, ed., Popular Culture in Seventeenth-Century England (Routledge, 1985), p. 199.
- ^ T. Watt, Cheap Print and Popular Piety, 1550-1640 (Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 11.
- ^ M. Spufford, Small Books and Pleasant Histories: Popular Fiction and Its Readership in Seventeenth-Century England (Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 111-28.
- ^ B. Capp, 'Popular literature', in B. Reay, ed., Popular Culture in Seventeenth-Century England (Routledge, 1985), p. 204.
- ^ J. R. Williams, The Life of Goethe (Blackwell Publishing, 2001), pp. 106-8.
- ^ S. Ledger, S. McCracken, Cultural Politics at the Fin de Siècle (Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 152.
- ^ M. Lubbock, The Complete Book of Light Opera (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1962) pp. 467-68.
- ^ "Ballad opera", Encyclopædia Britannica, retrieved 7 April 2015.
- ^ F. Kidson, The Beggar's Opera: Its Predecessors and Successors (Cambridge University Press, 1969), p. 71.
- ^ M. Lubbock, The Complete Book of Light Opera (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1962), pp. 467-68.
- ^ G. Wren, A Most Ingenious Paradox: The Art of Gilbert and Sullivan (Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 41.
- ^ K. Lawrence, Decolonizing Tradition: New Views of Twentieth-century "British" Literary Canons (University of Illinois Press, 1992), p. 30.
- ^ A. J. Aby and P. Gruchow, The North Star State: A Minnesota History Reader, (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2002), p. 461.
- ^ L. Lehrman, Marc Blitzstein: A Bio-bibliography (Greenwood, 2005), p. 568.
- ^ a b c d e f N. Cohen, Folk Music: a Regional Exploration (Greenwood, 2005), pp. 14-29.
- ^ a b Kerry O'Brien December 10, 2003 7:30 Report, abc.net.au Archived 2010-01-10 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ G. Smith, Singing Australian: A History of Folk and Country Music (Pluto Press Australia, 2005), p. 2.
- ^ "Who'll come a waltzing Matilda with me?". National Library of Australia. Archived from the original on 2 June 2003. Retrieved 15 November 2023.
- ^ N. Cohen, Folk Music: a Regional Exploration (Greenwood, 2005), p. 297.
References and further reading
- Dugaw, Dianne. Deep Play: John Gay and the Invention of Modernity. Newark, Del.: University of Delaware Press, 2001. Print.
- ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0.
- Randel, Don (1986). The New Harvard Dictionary of Music. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-61525-5.
- Temperley, Nicholas (25 July 2013) [2001]. "Ballad (from Lat. ballare: 'to dance')". ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0.
- Winton, Calhoun. John Gay and the London Theatre. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1993. Print.
- Witmer, Robert (14 October 2011) [20 January 2002]. "Ballad (jazz)". ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0.
- Marcello Sorce Keller, "Sul castel di mirabel: Life of a Ballad in Oral Tradition and Choral Practice", Ethnomusicology, XXX(1986), no. 3, 449- 469.
External links
- The British Literary Ballads Archive
- The Bodleian Library Ballad Collection: view facsimiles of printed ballads
- The English Broadside Ballad Archive: searchable database of ballad images, citations, and recordings
- Welsh Ballads resource guide
- The Traditional Ballad Index
- Black-letter Broadside Ballads Of The years 1595-1639 From the Collection of Samuel Pepys
- Smithsonian Global Sound: The Music of Poetry—audio samples of poems, hymns and songs in ballad meter.
- The Oxford Book of Ballads, complete 1910 book by Arthur Quiller-Couch
- English Broadside Ballad Archive—an archive of images and recordings of over 4,000 pre-1700 broadside ballads
- A Book of Old English Ballads public domain audiobook at LibriVox