The traditional Ballad

The traditional Ballad               is a phenomenon of the later middle age all

through Europe. It continued to be recited

in the early Renaissance.

Most of the oral ballads are from the border country between England and Scotland in the 15^th and 16^th centuries. (because of the Scottish dialect in which a good number of them are written)

A tradional ballad is an anonymous oral form

which is a combination of

verse      song dance.

They are handed down over generations by singers .

The singers composed the ballads by using stock phrases or description drawn form the repertoire they all knew.

It is a narrative and drammatic text

the story is concentreted on a single climatic episode, through a narrator, or through dialogue or through a combination of the two.

AUDIENCE common people

The ballad began to decline:

When the ties of communal village life were loosened

When there was the introduction of printing

Typography soon produced a new type of ballad: THE BROADSIDE BALLAD

There are several versions of the same ballad.

Traditional ballad began to be written only in the 18^th century.

Features of the ballad:

the form had to be memorable.

It is arranged in a series of four-line stanzas which tradionally rhyme abcb, but can follow other rhyme schemes such as abab.

It usually alternates four-stress and three-stress lines.

Alliteration is a recurrent device which helps memorability , produces musicality and emphasises relevant details.

The language is simple. It shows a clear preponderance of Anglo-Saxon origin and stock epithets.

GEORDIE

a story of tragic love, romantic passion, where the noble come to grief-

it has a tragic end. It is semi-historical

It's told by a narrator and through dialogue

the setting is outlined by essential concrete details.

Vocabulary: monosyllabic words/concrete nouns/Anglo-saxon words/stock adjectives

Successive statement/Straightforward sybtatic structure

Frequent use of repetition.

fair pretty maid : bella fanciulla

deer: selvaggina

cow or calf: mucche o vitelli

king's wild deer: cervi selvatici del re

golden chain: catena d'iri

yonder grove: boschetto

poaching: bracconaggio

plea: preghiera

"The judge looded over his left shoulder" (the left side is considered unlucky, to look over the left is a way of expressing somethingh negative)