Ballad

Meaning and Definition of Ballad:

Definition of Ballad

Derived from the Scottish word “ballares” which means to dance, the ballad has become popular as a narrative song with a specific theme and function. However, it is stated that it has been derived from Germanic traditions of telling stories through poems. One such poem is Beowulf. Ballads developed from 14th and 15th-century minstrelsy. The minstrel, a kind of performer in Medieval Europe, could be a musician, acrobat, singer or any other type of conceivable performer. As the decades and centuries progressed, the word “minstrel” narrowed to mean someone who sang songs and/or played musical instruments. The connection to the ballad is clear when one considers the fact that minstrels usually performed songs that related stories of distant places or historical events. These were more often than not imagined, and created from the minstrel’s own imaginations.

A ballad is a form of narrative verse that is considered either poetic or musical. As a literary device, a ballad is a narrative poem, typically consisting of a series of four-line stanzas. Ballads were originally sung or recited as an oral tradition among rural societies and were often anonymous retellings of local legends and stories by wandering minstrels in the Middle Ages. These traditional or “folk” ballads are sometimes referred to as “popular” ballads. Literary ballads are deliberate creations by poets in imitation of the form and spirit of a traditional ballad.

Structure of Ballad

Most ballads are structured in short stanzas. They often feature quatrain which is known as “ballad measure,” with alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter. In general, the second and fourth lines of each stanza rhyme, although occasionally the first and third lines rhyme. Some ballads feature two lines rather than four, which are from rhymed couplets of seven-stress lines.

Ballad is a general literary term that does not require a fixed poetic form. Many ballad poems are variations of the form or departures from it. As a form of narrative verse, ballads can be poetic or musical, but not all of them are songs. In addition, though most ballads tell a story, this is not a requirement of balladry. As a result, the structure of the ballad is a narrative poem or song, but there can be many variations for this literary form.

Nowadays, lovers of poetry are most familiar with literary or lyrical ballads. These are in contrast with traditional ballads, those which came from the minstrels of medieval Europe, and broadside ballads, which are sometimes thought to be vulgar or for the common people. When it comes to lyrical ballads, the best-known names include Robert Burns, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Oscar Wilde. These writers all contributed some of the best known, and widely respected ballads in the English language.

Scholars believe that the narrative poem and song originated from Germanic traditions of storytelling such as that seen in ‘Beowulf’. The earliest example of a ballad form in England is ‘Judas’ which is included in a 13th-century manuscript. It tells the story of Christ giving Judas 30 pieces of silver to buy food for the apostles.