Ballad

a simple, direct, and often crude narrative poem relating the fortunes or misfortunes of persons in a way to arouse deep feeling and interest in the auditor. The term ballad is akin to ballet, a dance. The ballad took its name from the dance to which it formed an accompaniment among primitive peoples. In brief, its origin was this: At some stirring event,--the outbreak of war, a victory, a defeat, a brave deed, a marriage, the death of a hero--the people gathered to rejoice, to mourn, or to perform religious rites. They chanted the story of the occurrence in rude song, accompanied with dance and gesture. This crowd singing, it must be borne in mind, was entirely spontaneous,--the pure expression of feeling where all felt alike. A parallel to this may be noticed frequently among children, who dance and sing to express joy over some piece of good news. They will repeat a sentence over and over, then add another; often forming a couplet of imperfect rhyme but true rhythm. The words sung at these gatherings of the people were at first but a bare statement of the fact which had excited joy or sorrow, repeated over and over. Then they would grow perhaps into a rude couplet, gradually increasing by addition of phrase or verse. If the event celebrated warranted it, repetitions became frequent; neighboring communities borrowed the incident and to some extent the words, and thus songs "passed down from generation to generation, served as newspaper to their own times and as chronicle to posterity."

If one person in the crowd possessed the gift of expression and leadership, the song might grow to better form under his handling. From time to time when not deeply moved by some event of the moment, we may imagine some one individual beginning the recital of the former deeds of hero or warrior. The crowd stop to listen. They join in the refrain. If the song pleases, it is called for again. It is picked up and sung, with many changes, by others, and here at last we have the traditional ballad or "folk song" in definite, if crude, form. There is in it something of the epic but it lacks the epic's majestic qualities. There is in it something of the lyric; but it lacks the grace, imagery, and individual feeling of pure lyric poetry. It is easy to see how the minstrel, singing his ballads to the music of his harp, came to be an important figure in the banquet hall.

The oldest known English ballads are those which sang the exploits of the famous Robin Hood. They date from the thirteenth century. Until the introduction of printing, toward the end of the fifteenth century, ballads must needs be handed down from father to son, usually by word of mouth, though some manuscript copies have been preserved. In 1765 Bishop Percy collected and edited these early poems with painstaking care. His work, entitled Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, is still the most noted collection of early English ballads. Most of these earlier ballads are in a coarse, broad dialect, full of antique words and phrases, of incorrect meters and curious attempts at rhyming; but it must be remembered that they were improvisations, for the ear, not for the eye. They may seem rough and coarse, but they fascinate by their utter naturalness. They are artless and simple, but they are fresh and wild and unstudied. A few stanzas taken from different ballads will give an idea of the style and versification prevalent. The first stanza is from the Ballad of Chevy Chase, which dates from Queen Elizabeth's time. It is an older version of the same ballad of which Sir Philip Sidney says, in his Defense of Poetry, "I never heard the old song of Percie and Douglas, that I found not my heart moved more than with a trumpet."

From Robin Hood and Allan-a-Dale:

From Sir Patrick Spens:

As culture and education advanced with the invention of printing, the minstrel gradually disappeared, the conscious poet taking his place, giving us such ballads as those by Coleridge and Macaulay, which, however, possess so few of the qualities of the old "folk song" that we must needs class the two as traditional and artistic ballads respectively. We thus see three periods in the development of the ballad:

1. The spontaneous singing of a crowd moved by the same emotion.

2. The song of an individual improvised to please a crowd or praise a hero.

3. The conscious song of the educated poet.

The ballad, then, is by no means an extinct form of poetry. The spirit and spontaneity of the early "folk song" may be lacking; but as long as the ballad recounts events of a common interest, and appeals to emotions which are universal, it will have a place in literature. The higher forms of poetry are like classical music. They command our admiration, and appeal strongly to those who are trained to appreciate them. But the ballad is for him "that hath ears." It stirs us like the music of fife and drum.

Well known English ballads are:

As we read Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, the old minstrels place us under a spell, and, for the time, make us forgetful of the fascination of the modern poets. We are transported back to the days of rude life in England. We sup, and watch, and fight, and love with the brave, lawless yeomen. Strive as they may, our poets of a nobler civilization cannot produce companion-pieces to the Ancient Ballad of Chevy Chase, or to Adam Bell, Clym of the Clough, and William of Cloudesley. "Young Lochinvar" and "Sheridan's Ride" are spirited, but they do not approach the old ballads in graphic terseness, in poetic simplicity, in fiery fervor, in tenderness of pathos. The reproduction of such poetry is prevented by the civilization of this age. Law, not lawlessness, is honored now. Personal prowess, reckless daring, are dangerous to society in this day; they gave protection to little bands in the English wood; they received the grateful applause of men who lived amid the perils of the Scottish Border. It was the hardihood of this age that produced the old ballads.--Shaw.

If we bear in mind the dominant importance of the individual, the artist, in advancing stages of poetry, it is easy to understand why, for civilized and lettered communities, the ballad has ceased to have any vitality whatever. . . . Indeed, paper and ink, the agents of preservation in the case of ordinary verse, are for ballads the agents of destruction.--Americana.

The popular ballads have passed away with the conditions which produced them. Modern poets have, in several instances, written ballads of striking picturesqueness and power, but as unlike the ballad of popular origin as the world of today is unlike the world in which "Chevy Chase" was first sung. These modern ballads are not necessarily better or worse than their predecessors; but they are necessarily different. It is idle to exalt the wild flower at the expense of the garden flower; each has its fragrance, its beauty, its sentiment; and the world is wide!--Hamilton Wright Mabie.