2. Definition ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ From Old French meaning “dancing song” Narrative composition in rhythmic verse suitable for singing Poetry for the people during the Middle Ages From oral tradition

3. CHARACTERISTICS ___________________________________________________________________________________________ About Supernatural Events Sensational Sordid Tragic subject matter

4. LITERARY CONVENTIONS ____________________________________________________ Incremental Repetition Question-and-Answer Format Conventional Phrases Strong, simple Beat Refrain

5. Incremental Repetition builds up suspense repeated phrase or sentence with an added element each time until the climax is reached

6. Question-and-Answer Format The facts of a story are gleaned little by little from the answers to build up suspense

7. CONVENTIONAL PHRASES ______________________________________________________________________ Meaning beyond literal meaning Ex. – if a character is making his/her bed or making the bed narrow, the speaker is preparing for death

8. STRONG, SIMPLE BEAT ______________________________________________________________________ Verse forms are uncomplicated For general, not elitist audiences Later forms used rhyme schemes, abcb, and meter, quatrain with four stresses alternating with lines of three stresses in standard ballad stanzas

9. REFRAIN _______________________________________________________________ Repetition of a - word - phrase - line - group of lines Allows singer to think of next verse

10. TYPES OF BALLADS _______________________________________________________________________________ Supernatural “Phantom 309” about ghost truck drivers Historical “Ballad of the Green Berets” about the Vietnam War “Birmingham Sunday” from the civil rights struggle of the sixties “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” about a twentieth-century sea tragedy Domestic “The Grand Tour” about a singer who tours his home after his wife leaves him