Writing Help 129 | - ☆ Freelance Writer
Apr 08, 2013 | #1
Poetic Terms You Have to Learn
As we have seen, and will continue to see in this series, there are a myriad of poetic forms which have defined literature in the English language over the centuries, some possessing great influence, others passing quickly, leaving almost no trace. With its lengthy history and lasting power, there is no doubt that the ballad falls into the former, rather than the latter, category.
While even such enduring forms as blank verse have diminished in popularity in more recent times, the ballad is one of the only traditional forms to maintain its importance even in this cynical era where poetry is not valued nearly so highly as it once was. For proof of the present position of the ballad, one does not need to look at the works of any major or minor poet at the library, nor does one need to do a Google search for web publications of aspiring literary balladeers.
In fact, one does not even need to be literate in order to appreciate the presence of the ballad form in contemporary culture, and this is very appropriate, considering the ballad form first arose completely independently of any written language. Today, the ballad has once again been freed from the page and the written word, and can be heard on just about any radio station in any area. The love ballad and the power ballad pervade music and popular culture, and the form is surpassed, perhaps, only by the lyric as the most popular way of composing music.
Although critics debate finer points of the definition, it is generally agreed that a ballad is a poetic composition, containing a regular meter (with rhyme as a very common feature), which has a definite narrative structure, and is designed to be accompanied by music of some kind. One of the key aspects of the ballad that sets it apart from other forms of verse is the need for narrative, or for the telling of some tale, ranging from the very local and minute to the highly international and grand. Unlike other verse forms, the ballad does not hold the sounds of words most highly, nor does it focus itself on the introspection of an individual and an exploration of his or her mind, thoughts, and feelings; the focus is on the action, on the plot as it unfolds, and as a result, the setting is almost irrelevant and the character development is either completely lacking or very superficial.
Moving into more specific critical classification criteria, more traditional scholars see the ballad as a form of oral folk poetry popular in the later middle ages, and employing a narrative perspective that is as objective as possible. The character of the speaker is never mentioned, and the speaker never mentions his or her emotions and feelings about the situation as it is being described.
The third person is used exclusively, adding another layer of impersonality to the text. The stories told were drawn from a common tradition, and as the tradition developed, a common meter now known, appropriately enough, as ballad meter began to dominate the composition of ballads. Ballad meter, which indicates far more than metrical terms usually do, is defined as a closed four-line set rhyming ABCB. The first and third lines have four stresses (usually eight syllables), while the second and fourth lines have three stresses (usually six syllables). The stress pattern is usually iambic, meaning there are alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, but the syllable strictures are not nearly so important as the number of stresses per line, which allows for significant variation in a form that might, at first glace, seem quite limiting.
The Ballad
As we have seen, and will continue to see in this series, there are a myriad of poetic forms which have defined literature in the English language over the centuries, some possessing great influence, others passing quickly, leaving almost no trace. With its lengthy history and lasting power, there is no doubt that the ballad falls into the former, rather than the latter, category.
While even such enduring forms as blank verse have diminished in popularity in more recent times, the ballad is one of the only traditional forms to maintain its importance even in this cynical era where poetry is not valued nearly so highly as it once was. For proof of the present position of the ballad, one does not need to look at the works of any major or minor poet at the library, nor does one need to do a Google search for web publications of aspiring literary balladeers.In fact, one does not even need to be literate in order to appreciate the presence of the ballad form in contemporary culture, and this is very appropriate, considering the ballad form first arose completely independently of any written language. Today, the ballad has once again been freed from the page and the written word, and can be heard on just about any radio station in any area. The love ballad and the power ballad pervade music and popular culture, and the form is surpassed, perhaps, only by the lyric as the most popular way of composing music.
Although critics debate finer points of the definition, it is generally agreed that a ballad is a poetic composition, containing a regular meter (with rhyme as a very common feature), which has a definite narrative structure, and is designed to be accompanied by music of some kind. One of the key aspects of the ballad that sets it apart from other forms of verse is the need for narrative, or for the telling of some tale, ranging from the very local and minute to the highly international and grand. Unlike other verse forms, the ballad does not hold the sounds of words most highly, nor does it focus itself on the introspection of an individual and an exploration of his or her mind, thoughts, and feelings; the focus is on the action, on the plot as it unfolds, and as a result, the setting is almost irrelevant and the character development is either completely lacking or very superficial.
Moving into more specific critical classification criteria, more traditional scholars see the ballad as a form of oral folk poetry popular in the later middle ages, and employing a narrative perspective that is as objective as possible. The character of the speaker is never mentioned, and the speaker never mentions his or her emotions and feelings about the situation as it is being described.
The third person is used exclusively, adding another layer of impersonality to the text. The stories told were drawn from a common tradition, and as the tradition developed, a common meter now known, appropriately enough, as ballad meter began to dominate the composition of ballads. Ballad meter, which indicates far more than metrical terms usually do, is defined as a closed four-line set rhyming ABCB. The first and third lines have four stresses (usually eight syllables), while the second and fourth lines have three stresses (usually six syllables). The stress pattern is usually iambic, meaning there are alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, but the syllable strictures are not nearly so important as the number of stresses per line, which allows for significant variation in a form that might, at first glace, seem quite limiting.