Concetti Chiave
- The term "ballad" originates from the Latin "ballare," meaning to dance, and refers to medieval poetry recited or sung with simple instrumental accompaniment.
- Ballads, anonymous narrative poems from the 13th and 14th centuries, depicted dramatic situations in short stanzas and were accessible to common people.
- They employed "incremental repetition," where each stanza repeated the previous one with new plot details, and often featured dialogues for clarity.
- Ballads lacked happy endings and didactic tone, focusing instead on hero descriptions and structured rhyme schemes like ABBA for refrains.
- Ballads covered themes like magic, love, and outlaws, with notable collections like Bishop Percy's "Reliques of Ancient English Poetry" in 1765.
What are the origins and structure of the ballads?
The word “ballad” derives from the Latin verb “ballare” which means to dance and it was used to describe this kind of medieval poetry structured in rhymed meters that was recited or sung to a simple instrumental accompaniment by common people in beer halls or fairs.
Popular ballads were written between the 13th and 14th century and were anonymous.
They were narrative poems that usually told of a single situation in a dramatic and impersonal way and were written in short stanzas of 2-4 lines.
The story was not told as a continuous series of events but as consecutive rapid episodes.
They often contained a lot of dialogues and used simple language so that everyone could understand it and focus on the story-line.
They also used the “incremental repetition techniques” which means that each new stanza would repeat the one before but adding a piece of new information about the plot.
The ballads were rich in the description of the heroes but they usual lacked happy endings and any didactic approach.
An important aspect of the ballads, especially the first Italian ballads, was the rhyming scheme connected with the different parts of them:
- the refrain (the verses that repeat themselves after the stanzas and the choirs) has the rhyme ABBA;
- the piede (the first part of the stanza and they are usually two) has the rhyme CDCD;
- the volta (the second part of the stanza) has the rhyme DEEA;
- the refrain again with the same rhymes (because it is repeated as it is).
Tipologie e raccolte di ballate
The ballads could develop different themes and so we can distinguish among ballads of magic, of love and of domestic tragedy, but also ballads of the outlaws (the most famous of which is the story of Robin Hood) and the border ballads which told about the enmity between the English and Scottish people.The medieval popular ballads were collected and then published by Bishop Percy in the “Reliques of Ancient English Poetry” in 1765.
Other types of ballads were the literary ones, which were imitations of the popular ones but written by learned poets, and modern popular ones in which traditional stories were fitted to contemporary conditions (such as in the US or in Australia but also in Italy with Giovanni Berchet).
Literary ballads were similar to the literary works that were famous among Provençal troubadours, like Jaufré Rudel or Bertran de Born, and Italian Medieval poets, especially during tensons, although there were some differences.
In the first case, the troubadour who was supposed to answer the literary attack of the first one to sing should have been used the same metre, genre and ballad’s structure of the former one.
Moreover, all the troubadours quoted in the ballad or involved in it should have been present in the same room.
In the second case, the created ballads were more rhetorical and the poetic response was delivered by a more conceptual literary poetic field. For this reason, each poet could have produced his own ballad, with its own prosody, and it was not necessary that they would have been present in person.
Domande da interrogazione
- What is the origin of the term "ballad" and its initial purpose?
- How were medieval popular ballads typically structured?
- What are some common themes found in ballads?
- How did literary ballads differ from popular ballads?
- Who played a significant role in the collection and publication of medieval ballads?
The term "ballad" originates from the Latin verb "ballare," meaning to dance. It described medieval poetry recited or sung with simple instrumental accompaniment, often in social settings like beer halls or fairs.
Medieval popular ballads were narrative poems written in short stanzas of 2-4 lines, using simple language and incremental repetition techniques. They often featured dialogues and told stories through rapid, consecutive episodes.
Ballads explored various themes, including magic, love, domestic tragedy, outlaws (like Robin Hood), and border conflicts, particularly between the English and Scottish people.
Literary ballads were imitations of popular ballads, crafted by learned poets. They were more rhetorical and conceptual, often not requiring the poets to be present together, unlike the more direct and communal nature of popular ballads.
Bishop Percy significantly contributed to the collection and publication of medieval ballads with his work "Reliques of Ancient English Poetry" in 1765.
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