Download Medieval Ballads

Medieval Ballads
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Poems set to music
Sung by common people
Origins remain a mystery
Composed between 1200-1500
Multiple versions of most ballads
Use of refrains (repetition)
Used a chorus occasionally
No elaborate detail in plot, setting, or character
Focus on a crisis
Dialogue is used
Subjects are love, death, and revenge
Easy to understand
Folk ballads do not have an author
Literary ballads do have an author
Robin Hood was a popular ballad
Passed on orally
Narrative (tells a story)
Usually develop where written language has not developed
Ballad – a narrative poem usually brief, that is meant to be sung
Stanza – 4 line group of lines in a poem, considered a unit
Refrain – regularly repeated line or group of lines in a poem or song
Ballad Stanza – 4 or 6 stanza form used in folk ballads or literary ballads
Rhyme Scheme – ABAB