Ballad

Ballad

Definition: A short definition of the popular ballad (known also as the folk ballad or traditional ballad) is that it is a song, transmitted orally, which tells a story. Ballads are thus the narrative species of folk songs, which originate, and are communicated orally, among illiterate or only partly literate people. In all probability the initial version of a ballad was composed by a single author, but he or she is unknown; and since each singer who learns and re- peats an oral ballad is apt to introduce changes in both the text and the tune, it exists in many variant forms. Typically, the popular ballad is dramatic, condensed, and impersonal: the narrator begins with the climactic episode, tells the story tersely by means of action and dialogue (sometimes by means of the dialogue alone), and tells it without self-reference or the expression of personal attitudes or feelings. The most common stanza form—called the ballad stanza—is a quatrain in alternate four- and three-stress lines; usually only the second and fourth lines rhyme. This is the form of "Sir Patrick Spens"; the first stanza of this ballad also exemplifies the conventionally abrupt opening and the manner of proceeding by third-person narration, curtly sketched setting and action, sharp transition, and spare dialogue: 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.