Introducing
Your new presentation assistant.
Refine, enhance, and tailor your content, source relevant images, and edit visuals quicker than ever before.
Trending searches
BaLLAD Stanza
1
What else is happening here?
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon...
Traditional Ballad Stanza Example
This is an example of an "abcb" and an internal rhyme scheme
“The Owl and the Pussy-Cat,” by Edward Lear:
They DINED on MINCE, and SLICEs of QUINCE, Which they ATE with a RUNcible SPOON;
And HAND in HAND, on the EDGE of the SAND,
They DANCED by the LIGHT of the MOON...
7 Beat Example
Robert W. Service’s “The Shooting of Dan McGrew”
A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon;
The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune;
Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,
And watching his luck was his light-o’-love, the lady that’s known as Lou.
This may as well be written as:
A bunch of the boys were whooping it up
In the Malamute saloon;
The kid that handles the music-box
was hitting a jag-time tune;
Back of the bar, in a solo game,
sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,
And watching his luck was his light-o’-love,
the lady that’s known as Lou.
So what is it?
- The modern conception of a ballad is considered to be a love song (the word describes a genre of "slow songs" in jazz or rock music. Ballads, in other words, are the songs at junior-high dances that make nervous adolescents pair off to sway back and forth awkwardly.) This is not the type of ballad we will be looking at today.
- A ballad is simple narrative poem of folk origin, composed in short stanzas and adapted for singing.
- All ballads tell stories in a particularly lively, scene-by-scene style.
- Ballads also emphasize strong rhythms, repetition of key phrases, and rhymes.
- A ballad stanza is the more traditional form of a ballad.
- By definition, the ballad stanza is a "four-line stanza in iambic meter in which the first and third unrhymed lines have four metrical feet and the second and fourth rhyming lines have three metrical feet."
How it Works
Now it is up to you!
In its most familiar version, the ballad stanza is four lines of alternating four-beat (tetrameter) and three-beat (trimeter) verse, with the second line rhyming with the fourth.
The format of the ballad stanza can be combined into a 7 beat line. In this case, the structure of the stanza has changed, however, the number of syllable stresses remain the same.