Ballad
Ballad,narrative poem of communal origin, transmitted by a process of oral tradition among people usually free from literary influences. Folk ballads frequently deal with common people, are presented with simplicity, have little description, and depend mainly on dialogue and incremental repetition, i.e. structural repetitions of a preceding stanza with some variation to advance the story. Metrically, the ballad is usually composed of long seven-stress lines, conventionally printed as two lines of four and three stresses each, rhyming abcb. Among the classifications of American folk ballads are those dealing with occupations (Casey Jones of the railroad workers, Git Along, Little Dogies of the cowboys, and The Jam on Gerry's Rock of the lumberjacks), with regions (The Roving Gambler of the Kentucky and Tennessee mountains, The Buffalo Skinners of the Western plains, and the The Erie Canal Ballad), with wars...
[The entire page is 323 words long]
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
Oxford University Press Titles
