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Ballads.. July 2000
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Ballads.. July 2000 |
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Nan
Administrator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-05-20
Posts 21191Cape Cod Massachusetts USA 
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So - we've gotta get this show on the road, yes??? We'll have fun even with the classroom not "quite" full...  Feel free to add your nickel's worth here, guys - I'm starting this one, but It's nice to have your input as well... Ballads are stories in poetic form. This narrative form of poetry has often been used in songs and has a very musical quality about it. The proper form for ballads is iambic heptameter (fourteen syllables - seven sets of unstressed-STRESSED per line), in sets of four, with the second and fourth lines rhyming. That's an a-b-c-b format. Remember - above all..... Think THEME... as in anything you write - without a well developed theme, you've got no continuity... I'm doing mine on the Salem witch hunts... I've been thinking about that one for awhile - and looking forward to it... Now, we all know that our very own Balladeer uses this format beautifully... Let's see if he can direct us to a couple of his gems for some good examples... Whatcha think Mike??? More to come... [This message has been edited by Nan (edited 07-05-2000).] |
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Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Well, you're gonna force me to admit that I don't follow the rules very good with my ballads. I do use the iambic heptameter with the 14 stressed and unstressed syllables but I normally go with the a-a-b-b rhyme scheme, using two couplets to form the stanza.....just personal preference on my part. If anyone wants to view the iambic heptameter part of it, they can find it in Small Pain in My Chest Night Travelers The Cycle all in the Voices on The web forum. If you want to see the a-b-c-b rhyme scheme, well, I'm gonna have to write one  |
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Sudhir Iyer Member Ascendant
since 2000-04-26
Posts 6943Mumbai, India : now in Belgium |
Believe it or not, I did some research on ballads yesterday... and I found a web-site that explains things quite well... http://www.dnaco.net/~aleed/ballad/index.html I hope this helps. I am going to try to come up with something, lets see. I hope I do, because this will be a great learning process for a rustic like me... regards, sudhir. |
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hoot_owl_rn Member Patricius
since 1999-07-05
Posts 10750Glen Hope, PA USA |
Okay Nan...since mine's already written  count me in here |
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Munda Member Elite
since 1999-10-08
Posts 3544The Hague, The Netherlands |
OK Nan, I did a little research on Ballads and this is what I found on two different sites.  http://members.aol.com/lucyhardng/pointers/muscches.htm The ballad form is a sweet one, and everpresent in poetry. This verse form alternates lines of four feet (hinged on four stressed syllables or beats) with lines of three feet. The feet are usually iambic (weak syllable/strong syllable), but don't have to be. This 4-3-4-3 etc. arrangement creates a kind of lilting cadence that lends itself to sweet poetry, but it is even more arresting to use this form as a container for other content, too. The tension-then-release, almost "Slinky" approach is really a song form-- more than half the songs you listen to on the radio are ballads--even many where the beat is speeded up well beyond its deliberative roots in story-based, English folk music. To use a classic example of the form, consider this ending of the famous folksong, "Mary Hamilton." Mary is a lady-in-waiting at the Queen's court, whose life must sacrificed because of a tryst with the King. (The stresses are capitalized.) Last NIGHT there WERE four MA RY'S 4 beats-- NIGHT , ARE, MA- and -RY'S To NITE there'll BE but THREE 3 beats-- -NITE, BE, THREE There was MARy of EDen, and MARy SEAton 4 beats-- MAR-, ED-, MAR-and SEA And MARy Car MI chael, and ME. 3 beats-- MAR-, -MI-, and ME. Note here that not all the feet are iambic. Some have extra weak syllables, some have no weak syllables, only the stressed syllable itself. But the 4-3-4-3 line scheme is there. The stanzas of a ballad (and the overall piece) will always end on the 3 beat line. If that one was a little tough to follow, here's a VERY basic ballad stanza, one EVERYBODY knows. MARy HAD a LITtle LAMB 4 beats its FLEECE was WHITE as SNOW 3 beats and EVeryWHERE that MARy WENT 4 beats the LAMB was SURE to GO. 3 beats The fact that the ballad form is so simple leads new poets to it early. Its tension/release works well for story-based, narrative poetry, and often new poets start writing in exactly that manner, since it parallels the kind of exposition they are used to in prose. For that widespread application, ballad form appears to be a shiny rental car with the motor running. The key though, is for the new poet is to make his or her ballads ring with some kind of truth--to transcend the natural ease and sweet lilt of the form against the ear and say something really special. You may find as you proceed that your message, what you want to say is too much for this very basic form. And that may be a sign you are growing as poet. Yet not always. Great, great poetry has been written in this form for centuries. But is usually written by poets who have mastered more elaborate forms, too. If you like, start here, and see where you go. Unlike the lamb, you follow Mary only if she's going where you are. http://shoga.wwa.com/~rgs/glossary.html BALLAD A short narrative poem with stanzas of two or four lines and usually a refrain. The story of a ballad can originate from a wide range of subject matter but most frequently deals with folk-lore or popular legends. They are written in straight-forward verse, seldom with detail, but always with graphic simplicity and force. Most ballads are suitable for singing and, while sometimes varied in practice, are generally written in ballad meter, i.e., alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, with the last words of the second and fourth lines rhyming. Sidelight: Many old-time ballads were written and performed by minstrels attached to noblemen's courts. Folk ballads are of unknown origin and are usually lacking in artistic finish. Meant to be sung, but often studied as poetry, the texts are independent of the melodies, which are often used for a number of different ballads. Because they are handed down by oral tradition, folk ballads are subject to variations and continual change. Literary ballads, combining the natures of epic and lyric poetry, as Keats' La Belle Dame sans Merci, or Scott's Jock o'Hazeldean, are written by known authors, often in the style and form of the folk ballad. (See also Broadside Ballad, Lay, Tragedy) (Compare Chanson de Geste, Common Measure, Epopee, Epos, Heroic Quatrain) BALLADE (ba-LAHD) Frequently represented in French poetry, a fixed form consisting of three seven or eight-line stanzas using no more than three recurrent rhymes with an identical refrain after each stanza and a closing envoi repeating the rhymes of the last four lines of the stanza. A variation containing six stanzas is called a double ballade. Sidelight: The ballade was prominent in French literature from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century and was favored by many poets, including Francois Villon, for example, in his Des Dames du Temps Jadis. In the nineteenth century it was popular with poets like Verlaine and Baudelaire. In English literature, Chaucer wrote ballades and some late-nineteenth century poets also used the form. OK LOL You may call me a smart aleck, but I'm going for the iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, with the last words of the second and fourth lines rhyming. (Don't ya luv us Dutch ) |
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Not A Poet Member Elite
since 1999-11-03
Posts 3885Oklahoma, USA |
Great detective work Munda. Now how many different forms will we see called ballads? And how many of them will actually be ballads?BTW Nan, I'm still working on mine but almost finished. Maybe yet this week  Pete [This message has been edited by Not A Poet (edited 07-19-2000).] |
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