Traditional ballad

Materie:	Appunti
Categoria:	Lingue
Voto:	1.5 (2)
Download:	81
Data:	25.01.2001
Numero di pagine:	2
Formato di file:	.doc (Microsoft Word)

The traditional Ballad is a phenomenon of the later middle age all
through Europe. It continued to be recited
in the early Renaissance.
Most of the oral ballads are from the border country between England and Scotland in the 15th and 16th centuries. (because of the Scottish dialect in which a good number of them are written)
A tradional ballad is an anonymous oral form
which is a combination of
verse song dance.
They are handed down over generations by singers .
The singers composed the ballads by using stock phrases or description drawn form the repertoire they all knew.
It is a narrative and drammatic text
the story is concentreted on a single climatic episode, through a narrator, or through dialogue or through a combination of the two.
AUDIENCE → common people
The ballad began to decline:
• When the ties of communal village life were loosened
• When there was the introduction of printing
Typography soon produced a new type of ballad: THE BROADSIDE BALLAD
There are several versions of the same ballad.
Traditional ballad began to be written only in the 18th century.

Features of the ballad:
the form had to be memorable.
It is arranged in a series of four-line stanzas which tradionally rhyme abcb, but can follow other rhyme schemes such as abab.
It usually alternates four-stress and three-stress lines.
Alliteration is a recurrent device which helps memorability , produces musicality and emphasises relevant details.
The language is simple. It shows a clear preponderance of Anglo-Saxon origin and stock epithets.
GEORDIE
a story of tragic love, romantic passion, where the noble come to grief-
it has a tragic end. It is semi-historical
It’s told by a narrator and through dialogue
the setting is outlined by essential concrete details.
Vocabulary: monosyllabic words/concrete nouns/Anglo-saxon words/stock adjectives
Successive statement/Straightforward sybtatic structure
Frequent use of repetition.
fair pretty maid : bella fanciulla
deer: selvaggina
cow or calf: mucche o vitelli
king’s wild deer: cervi selvatici del re
golden chain: catena d’iri
yonder grove: boschetto
poaching: bracconaggio
plea: preghiera
“The judge looded over his left shoulder” (the left side is considered unlucky, to look over the left is a way of expressing somethingh negative)