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IV Popular Ballads
1.A survey
The most important
department of English folk literature is the ballad. The ballad is a
narrative meant to be sung, usually composed in the ballad stanza. Although
some ballads are carefully crafted poems written by literate authors and
meant to be read silently (such as those in Lyrical Ballads by
Wordsworth and Coleridge), the folk ballad (or popular ballad, or
traditional ballad) is derived from the oral tradition. Two of the most
important collections of ballads are Reliques of Ancient English Poetry,
collected by the eighteenth-century cleric Thomas Percy, and the late
Victorian collection by Francis James Child called The English and
Scottish Popular Ballads. Child's collection contains 305 ballads and
many variants, and many ballads are still known by their "Child number."
Sometimes "border ballad" is used to refer to those ballads that originated
from the area around the border between England and Scotland.
A popular ballad has often got an abrupt beginning, as the
characters in a ballad must be well-known among people, the narrative
plunges directly into actions at the beginning without introduction; a
popular ballads should also include some strong dramatic elements which help
to lead to the climax of the episode. The ballads are in various English and
Scottish dialects and the ballad meter is used. The theme of the popular
ballad is often tragic.
Take “ Sir Patrick Spens” for example, the story depicts a
Scottish sailor who was sent by the court to find a new bride for the king
and finally died in a storm. It is a tragedy told in Scottish dialect:
The king sits in Dumferline town,
Drinking the blue-reid wine:
“O whar will I get a guid sailor
To sail this ship of mine?”
…
The king has written a braid letter
And signed it wi’ his hand,
And sent it to Sir Patrick Spens,
Was walking on the sand.
The first line that Sir Patrick read,
A loud lauch lauched he;
The next line that Sir Patrick read,
The tear blinded his ee.
“O, wha is this has done this deed,
This ill deed done to me,
To sent me out this time o’ the year,
To sail upon the sea?”
…
Half o’er, half o’er to Aberdour,
It’s fifty fadom deep,
And there lies guid Sir Patrick Spens,
Wi’ the Scots lords at his feet.
The dramatic elements are shown particularly in the 3rd
stanza (chosen), that the first line in the letter makes Sir Patrick Spens
laugh while at reading the second line Patrick burst into tears, which
serves the most dramatic effect.
These popular ballads constitute one of the main
streams of English literature in the 15th century or to Shakespeare and
Marlowe and Spencer and Sidney of the late 16th century. They were
essentially people’s literature, composed by the people and for the people.
They were generally narrative poems that originated in oral form, not unlike
the epics of the classical and medieval times though very much shorter, and
were written down only after they had passed on from mouth to mouth for some
length of time. They were created collectively by the people and constantly
revised in the process of being handed down until they had passed through
centuries of life on the lips of the people. They are mainly the literature
of the peasants, and in them one is able to understand the outlook of the
English common people in the feudal society.
The subjects of ballads are various in kind, as the
struggle of the young lovers against their feudal-minded families, the
conflict between love and wealth, the cruelty of the jealousy, the criticism
of the civil war, and the matters of class struggle. One paramount
importance are the ballads of Robin Hood.
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