English poetry appreciation: essay 1
Chris Chang [4-2] Student number: 2014012644
May 18th, 2015
The Evaluation Of Ballad Form
——An example of how a literary ballad takes the traditional ballad
form and uses it in more complex and innovative ways
Centuries-old in practice, the composition of ballads began in the European folk tradition, in many cases accompanied by musical instruments. Ballads were not originally transcribed, but rather preserved orally for generations, passed along through recitation.
A typical ballad is a plot-driven song, with one or more characters hurriedly unfurling events leading to a dramatic conclusion. To convey that sense of emotional urgency, the ballad is often constructed in quatrain stanzas, each line containing as few as three or four stresses and rhyming either the second and fourth lines, or all alternating lines. Both traditional ballads and literary ballads use this form to express the ideas and feelings of the poets, but the literary ballads tend to be more organized and effective.
The form of ballads keeps evolving up with the time, and actually all the ballads do not have the same formal consistency as some other poetic forms. Ballads emphasize strong rhythms, repetition of key phrases, and rhymes; if you hear a traditional ballad, you will know that you are hearing a poem. Ballads are meant to be song-like and to remind readers of oral poetry. Though we can always identify a ballad by these certain characteristics, the traditional ballads and literary ones still differ from each other type. Here are some analysis of the differences between the forms of traditional poets and literary ones, which are based on the contrast of the traditional ballad She Moved Through the Fair and the literary one Two Red Roses Across the Moon.
1.Simple language. Most ballads are composed for audiences of non-specialist hearers orreaders. Therefore, they feature language that people can understand without specialist training or repeated readings. When we see the ballad She Moved Through the Fair, there are many everyday words in the lines, especially the description of the movement of the beloved: She stepped away from me / And she moved through the fair / And fondly I watched her / Move here and move there.All the descriptions are just plain and modest, which is accessible to every reader.
Comparing to the literary one Two Red Roses Across the Moon, the poet William Morris used more complicated and meaningful words. For instance, You scarce could see for the scarlet and blue / A golden helm or a golden shoe / So he cried, as the fight grew thick at the noon / Two red roses across the moon! In this stanza, William used more colorful words to express the feelings and
