Ballad

Ballad, also known as folk ballad or traditional ballad, is a song typically of unknown authorship, passed down orally from one generation to the next. It narrates a story in verse, composed with spirit, in short stanzas, generally of patriotic interest, and sung originally to the harp. Most likely, a ballad is composed by a single unknown author, however, each singer who learns the ballad by word of mouth, is apt to introduced changes, both in the text and its tune.

There are several forms of ballad. However, a typical ballad is dramatic and impersonal. A climactic episode is sung in the beginning, a story is told in terse language, and dialogue or action or both are employed to tell it.

Stanza form is the most common which is called the ballad stanza. It is a quatrain in alternate four-stressed and tree-stressed iambic lines. Only the second and the fourth lines rhyme.

The first stanza of begins has an exemplified conventionally abrupt opening with a brief sketches of the setting and action, sharp transition, and curt dialogue. The first stanza typically contains some descriptive phrases and a refrain. As the story proceeds in further stanzas, we find incremental repetitions of a line or stanza with some additions to advance the story of the ballad.

Many collectors have been collecting ballads since the eighteenth century. Popular ballads are still being sung and collected.

A slow sentimental or romantic song composed in the style of popular ballads are also called ballads. Folk singers are found often singing and composing themselves, however, most of them are found lacking the primitive and heroic mode of the popular ballads.

A popular form of ballad emerged in the sixteenth century in Britain called 'broadside ballad' which was printed on one side of single sheet called 'broadside'. This journalistic form may contain current events and sung to a well-known tune.

Literary ballad is another form of ballad, an imitation of popular traditional ballad. Many of the literary ballads were written during the Romantic period in English literature. Coleridge's the 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner' is one of the greatest among them.