ballads

Medieval Ballads –its Intensity

and Blank Spaces for Imagination



―Sir Patrick Spence,‖ ―Edward‖ &

―Barbara Allen‖ in different versions

Ballads: Definition & Origin

 Definition: a narrative song.

 Origins:

 Usually in primitive societies such as that of

American frontier in the 18th and 19th centuries

and that of the English-Scottish border region in

the later Middle Ages.

 Revised and passed down orally during the 500

period from 1200 to 1700

 One of the first recorded versions in 18th

century: Thomas Percy Reliques of Ancient

English Poetry

 Francis. J. Child‘s The English and Scottish

Popular Ballads (1882)

Ballads: Characteristics and

Form

 Characteristics as an oral form of art:

 Spareness of plot –in media res (or even climaxes of

the story), through monologue or dialogue, no

narratorial comments ( how ―less‖ suggests ―more‖)

 Use of repetition and refrain ( repetition with variation)

 Simplicity of tune and rhythm (four stresses in one line;

rhymes )

 One ballad stanza -- with four lines, alternating

between tetrameter--four iambic beats (da-DUM, da-

DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM), and trimeter--three beats

(da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM) per line. (source) 

variation

 Archetypal symbols e.g. green/yellow leaves, sea, etc.

Ballads: Kinds



 Historical –‖Sir Patrick Spens‖

 Outlaw – ―Robin Hood‖



 Romantic –‖Barbara Allen‖



 Supernatural --?  ―Ancient Mariner‖



 Tragic –‖Edward‖



Ref: http://www.skell.org/explore/balladsF.htm

Ballads: Influences on the

19th-century poetry

Some 19th-c poems in Ballad form:

 William Blake's "The Tyger― (six quatrains

in rhymed couplets. Trochee--hammering

beat –forging the tiger in the smithy. 7 or 8

syllables each line);

 Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Rime of the

Ancient Mariner― (sometimes 6 lines, sometimes

with internal rhymes);

 John Keats's "La Belle Dame Sans Merci."

Sir Patrick Spens

 Possible Historical Connections:

1. In 1281, Scottish King Alexander III's daughter

Margaret was married to Norway's King Eric, but on

her voyage home, the ship sank and all perished.

(see another version)

2. Eric and Margaret were survived by a daughter,

also named Margaret. She was to be married to a

son of England's King Edward I, but died while

sailing from Norway.

3. a famous shipwreck off the coast of Aberdour near

Papa Stronsay Island, which claims to be the burial

place of Sir Patrick Spens.

 Dangerous journeys

Variation



 After the stanza on the King‘s sending

a letter.

 "To Noroway, to Noroway,

To Noroway o'er the foam;

The King's daughter of Noroway,

'Tis thou must fetch her home."

Sir Patrick Spens--Questions

 Intensity (1): Contrast between Sir Patrick Spens,

the King and the old knight?

 Intensity (2): Irony The knight‘s suggestion:

 "Sir Patrick Spens is the best sailor

That ever sailed the sea."

 Intensity (3): Responses Sir Patrick Spens‘s

response when getting the King‘s order?

 The first line that Sir Patrick read,

A loud laugh laughed he;

The next line that Sir Patrick read,

The tear blinded his ee.

 Any impressive images? What lines are repeated

to create some ironies or other effects?

 Spaces for Imagination: What‘s left untold

Sir Patrick Spens vs. the King

and the Knight

 Sir Patrick Spens—walk on the sand; the king ―sits‖

and drinks ―the blood-red wine‖; the old knight –

sits by the king‘s right knee

 Ironic contrast to Sir Patrick Spens with the sounds

of ―s‖

 Sir Patrick Spens‘s response—

 Laugh—a joke, ridiculous; happy for being praised?

 Cry – tears blind him, but he is not blind to his fate.

 Question – suspects conspiracy

 Obedience –‖make haste, make haste, my merry men all‖

Sir Patrick Spens vs. Fate

 Image -- the new moon

with the old moon in her

arm = , the dark shape of

the old moon and only

the hint of a crescent of

the new moon.  an evil

omen that predicts bad

weather  ―Rime of the

Ancient Mariner‖

 He follows the order

despite his awareness of

death

Sir Patrick Spens vs. the

Nobles and Ladies

1. The trivial concerns of the Scots nobles and

their immediate deaths (suggested by the

wetting of their hats) insignificance of lives:

2. The ―play‖? –at the court? Or the trick of life?

 O laith, laith were our guid Scots lords,

To weet their cork-heel'd shoon;

But lang or a' the play was play'd,

They wat their hats aboon.

2. The ladies – well decorated, helpless.

 Repetition of ―lang, lang‖ may the maidens

sit/stand (inactive)

 With their gold combs in their hair and fans in

their hands

Final Tribute Paid to Spens



 It's forty miles frae Aberdeen,

And fifty fathoms deep,

And there lies guid Sir Patrick Spence,

Wi' the Sects lords at his feet!

1. A contrast to the King, who has the

old knight and his people at his feet.

2. Repetition of the word guid

Spaces for Imagination:

What‘s left untold



 The whole journey to death

 What actually happens in the ship;

 how they fought against the storm.

 Burial, monument set for them, etc.

 The reasons for the trip.

Compared with

古詩〈公無渡河〉



 公無渡河，公竟渡河，墮河而死，將奈

公何！

 Similarities: noble death by nature and

women‘s passive role.

 Use of repetition

 ―Sir Patrick Spens‖ -- More reasons for

his death are given; more people set in

contrast with Spens.

Barbara Allen –Questions

Contrast – 1) Barbara vs. John vs. the others;

2) Barabar’s responses at different moments

A. story--

1) why Barbara Allen refuses to be kind to the dying young

man; ―slowly, slowly‖ her matter-of-fact response to his

death

2) the young man‘s response to Barbara Allen‘s unkindness;

3) the other people‘s responses and the church bell;

4) Barbara Allen‘s final response –laugh, or cry, or die

5) ending –repentance or resolution and union (The red rose

and the briar.)

B. singing style

C. narrative

1) how the story is told—by a narrator or not;

D. ballad/poetic elements: the plot, symbol, repetition,

contrast, rhyme and rhythm

Version (1) -- Child’s 84B (song Dan Tate’s)

Bonny Barbara Allen—Her Hard-

Heartedness and Repentance



 A story of a hard-hearted woman and a young man

obsessed by love

 Young man-- ‘Come pitty me, As on my death-bed I am

lying.‘

 B‘s response – 1. Then little better shall he be/For bonny

Barbara Allen. ‖So slowly slowly she got up.‖

2. I cannot keep you from [your] death; So farewell,‘

3. on seeing the corpse –laugh

4. repent –―For his death hath quite undone me.

‗A hard-hearted creature that I was,/To slight one that

lovd me so dearly; I wish I had been more kinder to him,

The time of his life when he was near me.‖

 Social Condemnation– The bell and Her friends:

Unworthy Barbara Allen!

Version (2) (song Gilbert, Art Garfunkel)

–Irony of Fate

Barbara Allen

-- cannot forget being slighted.

-- Went to William by herself.

1. "Young man, I think you're dying."

Irony of fate: Barbara Allen – feeling slighted

Young man--―I toasted all the ladies there, /Gave my

love to Barbara Allen."

--* sound effects: feminine rhymes;



William – ready to die -- He turned his pale face to the

wall,/Be nice to Barbara Allen

-- * sound: In this stanza, alliteration is used, with a "d"

sound occurring in the words "death," "dealing,"

"adieu," and "dear."

Version (2) (song Gilbert, Art Garfunkel)

–Irony of Fate



B’s responses –



2. feels guilty herself -- psychological –

―And every toll they seemed to say,

"Hard-hearted Barbara Allen."



3. Actively searches for the coffin: ―She looked east,

she looked west,/She saw his corpse a-comin'.‖



4. Actively welcome death: ―make me a bed long and

narrow‖; ―I'll die for him tomorrow

Version (3): (song Sarah Makem)

stopped by her parents

 Social pressures:

 parents urge her to go (Get up, get up, her mother

says,Get up and go and see him);

 later when she bursts out laughing, she is

condemned by ‗his weary friends.‘

 Reason –the parents stopped her from going near him.

 Barbara Allen –very stubborn and realistic: ―One word

from me you never will get,Nor any young man

breathin',For the better of me you never will

be,Though your heart's blood was a-spillin'. ‖

 John – die more dramatically. ―Bloody sheets and

bloody shirtsI sweat them for you, Allen my gold watch

and my gold chain I bestow them to you, Allen‖

Barbara Allen:

The Four Versions

 Social influences  Fate and

stronger in versions 1 miscommunication:

& 3 – e.g. Versions 2 & 4

 1. the narrator, social  Common points:

condemnation of a  setting in May,

cruel woman

 BA – hard-hearted for

 2. the parents‘ role, different reasons.

social condemnation of

an obedient girl

―Edward‖—

the breaking of kinship

 The dialogue between a mother and her son,

Edward. --incremental repetition+ suspense

 Blood: hawk‘s steed‘s (other versions: dogs, my brother

John)  father‘s

 To avoid penance  he has to leave behind his property

and his family (let them beg through life)

 Curses his mother, who suggests the idea of killing his

father.

 The mother‘s intention in her questions –to see if

her goal is reached, to pretend innocence, etc..

 Oedipus complex?

 Music:

http://www.contemplator.com/child/edwrdbrl.html

Love Stories we have read so

far

1. Love and Social Conditioning (esp. of women)

(manners, class, place and money)

―A Rose for Emily‖ ―A&P‖ ―Araby‖ Pygmalion, The Glass

Menagerie

2. Love, Courtship and Praising the Lady

"To His Coy Mistress" ―The Flea‖ the Courting Sonnet in Romeo

and Juliet ―

3. Love, Poetry and Life/Mortality

―A Valediction Forbidding Mourning" ―That time of year thou

mayst in me behold" ―Shall I compare thee to a summer's

day‖

4. Love and Death

―My Last Duchess‖ ―Porphyria‘s Lover‖

Vs. "The Lady of Shalott" ―Song‖ & ―Barbara Allen‖