Ballads

In a nutshell

Ballads are a type of poetic form which were originally sung or performed alongside music. They were also often passed on through retelling, and therefore they usually have repetitive rhythms and catchy rhyme schemes so as to be easily memorable. Ballads can be about virtually anything, real or fictional. In this summary, you will learn how to identify ballads.

Form of the ballad

Ballads almost always follow a rhyme scheme and they usually tell a story or narrative. Ballads sometimes have recurring moments, scenes or lines.

Rhyme schemes of ballads

Ballads usually follow an ABAB or an ABCB rhyme scheme, but there can be ballads which use a different kind of repetitive scheme. Some ballads follow a strict rhyme scheme, while others contain minor deviations from the rhyme scheme or follow a rhyme scheme that sometimes changes. As the rhyme scheme is often ABAB or ABCB, ballads are typically written in quatrains.

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Rhythm and metre

Ballads are usually, but not exclusively, written in trimeter or tetrameter. They are also usually either iambic or trochaic.

Example

This stanza follows an ABCB rhyme scheme, and it alternates between iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter:

​He holds him with his skinny hand,
'There was a ship,' quoth he.
'Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!'
Eftsoons his hand dropt he.

(From the famous ballad 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner' by Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

Narrative

Ballads are used to tell narrative stories, to take the reader or listener of the poem on a narrative journey. This means that a lot of ballads are longer poems as they have to fit in the entirety of a poetic tale. Ballads can follow narrative arcs, introduce settings and characters, make use of moral problems or questions and they often end with a finality to the conclusion.

Example

​Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

('Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening' by Robert Frost)

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Poetic refrain

A poetic refrain is the repetition of an idea, a line or even an entire stanza in a poem. Ballads often make use of poetic refrains. Refrains are used to draw attention to the message of the poem, emphasise particular moments of drama or highlight morals in the poem.

Example

In his poem 'RENDANG', Will Harris repeats the word 'RENDANG', and the phrase 'No, they respond. No, no' as a poetic refrain.