Ballads7th Grade L.A.

Warm UpIn your journal, respond to the following questions:

Have you heard of a ballad before?What do you think a ballad is?Can you think of any examples of

ballads?

The History…of the ballad form

Preservation of BalladsCenturies-old in practice, the

composition of ballads began in the European folk tradition, in many cases accompanied by musical instruments. Ballads were not originally written down, but instead were passed along generations by being sung.

Subject MatterThen: In the past, ballads had primary topics

they addressed. Their subject matter dealt with religious themes, love, tragedy, domestic crimes, and sometimes even political propaganda.

Now: Anything you want!

PrintBallads began to make

their way into print in fifteenth-century England. During the Renaissance, making and selling ballad broadsides became a popular practice, though these songs rarely earned the respect of artists because their authors, called "pot poets," often were among the lower classes.

Eventually however…The ballad form evolved into a writer’s sport. In other words…?

Ballad FeaturesStructure, devices, and so on

StructureA ballad is a story poem with a strong rhyme and rhythm.

Ballads are traditionally songs, or at least song-like.

The classic ballad stanza has 4 lines, with the lines alternating between eight syllables and six syllables.

Features Cont.In each line, every other

syllable is emphasized, creating that sing-song: da-DUM da-DUM da-

DUM da-DUM rhythmThe second and fourth

lines rhyme, but the first and third don't have to (still, they frequently do).

Gilligan’s IslandI promise there is rhyme to my reason here - or reason to my rhyme.

Examples…of ballad poetry.

A ballad stanza in a poemHas lines as long as these.In measuring the lines, we findWe get both fours and threes.

The Trick

A Bal Lad Stan Za In A Poem

Has Lines

As Long As these.

In Mea Sur Ing The Lines,

We Find

We Get Both Fours

And threes

God prosper long our noble king,

Our liffes and saftyes all!

A woefull hunting once there did

In Chevy Chase befall..

From the middle ages

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,

The furrows followed free;

We were the first that ever burst

Into that silent sea.

From “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”By Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The brain is deeper than the sea,

For, hold them, blue to blue,

The one the other will absorb

As sponges, buckets do.

From Emily Dickinson

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost, but now I’m found,

Was blind, but now I see.

Practice