AGeneralIntroductiontoEnglishPopularBallads

英国民谣概述A General Introduction to English Popular BalladsContentsAbstract1Introduction .2 What Is a ballad?.2 History of the British Popular Ballad.32.1 The Origin of British Popular Ballads and Its Early Forms 32.2 The Development and Flourished Period 42.3 Disappearance of the Ballads. 42.4 Conclusion. 5 Typical Characteristics of British Popular Ballads.53.1 Simple Language53.2 Stories.63.3 Ballad Stanzas.73.4 Dialogue83.5 Third-person Objective Narration.8 Contents of a Ballads and Outlaws Robin Hoods.8 Conclusion10Reference.11A General Introduction to English Popular Ballads摘要: 作为诗歌的一种形式, 开始于中世纪的英国民谣包括英国民谣和爱尔兰民谣, 并盛行于14, 15世纪。那时,成千上万的民谣在苏格兰南部(也称低地)和北英格兰与苏格兰边境流行。 民谣就是一个故事, 挖掘了它的本质便可形成一首歌, 歌曲本身会是平实的, 通常一个简单的诗节便可形成旋律。 尽管旋律平实, 但歌曲本身很动听, 像所有的民谣一样。之所以民谣能得到持久的发展和流行是与它的简单平实有关。似乎每隔几十年民谣就会以古书和手稿的形式复兴, 借此来寻找早期民谣和灵感。本文拟从民谣的定义，历史走向（它的起源，发展，繁荣和没落），特点和内容这四个方面来对此进行阐述。关键词: 英格兰, 流行, 民谣Abstract: As one of the poetry form, British ballads included English and Scottish popular ballads began from the Middle Ages and became popular in fourteen and fifteen century. At that time, millions of ballads were prevail in the south of Scotland (that is also called Lowlands) and Borders between North England and Scotland A ballad is a story, distilled to its essence and set to song. Every few decades the ballad seems to undergo a revival, with old books and manuscripts being searched for old ballads and new inspiration. I would like to express it from four aspects, they are ballads definition, history( including origins, development , flourish period and its disappearance) ,characteristics and content. Key words: British, popular, ballads, A General Introduction to English Popular BalladsIntroduction: British ballads, as one of the poetry form, included English and Scottish popular ballads. It began from the Middle Ages and became popular in fourteen and fifteen century then came down with the flourish of novel, drama and prose from sixteen century. Ballads tell a story, usually thrilling or tragic, beginning with a crises or problem, with not much explanation for background causes. Often in a third person point-of-view with a dialogue incorporated. It is often use traditional quatrains, with the first and third lines having four feet, the second and fourth rhyming with three feet. The ballad may be sung or spoken and usually covers historical events, heartbreaking episodes, love stories, or life in general. It may be serious or humorous. Frequently the narrative is mystical in nature, requiring imagination to follow the happenings, with catastrophic events leading the reader to conclude an inevitable fate. What is a balladi. The word ballad has mutated over the centuries. If you find the word ballad in a pre-1600 source, it is unlikely to be referring to a song that we would consider a ballad today. In the fifteenth century the word referred to a song meant to accompany a dance. Earlier than that, it referred to the French verse form (possibly set to music) for which we now reserve the term ballade. By the sixteenth century, any light, simple song might be called a ballad. (Passtime with Good Company was called a ballad in its day.) ii. At the end of the seventeenth century, the word generally referred to broadside ballads, which were often topical songs, set to the tunes of the day. (The broadsides themselves were the cheaply printed song sheets often sold on street corners. Some of the broadside ballads were songs we would call ballads today, but most were not. )iii. By the nineteenth century, ballad had come to refer to the sort of narrative verse we associate with ballads today. The ballad as popular song, however, had suffered enough of a decline that many academics only knew of it as a form of poetry. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED), for instance, cites an 1870 definition of the ballad as A simple spirited poem in short stanzas.in which some popular story is graphically narrated. iv. The modern definition of the ballad was captured, and largely defined, late in the nineteenth century, by the work of Francis James Child. Kittredge, in his abridgement of Childs collection of ballads, describes the ballad as .a song that tells a story, or - to take the other point of view - a story told in song. More formally.a short poem, adapted for singing, simple in plot and metrical structure, divided into stanzas, and characterized by complete impersonality so far as the author or singer is concerned.v. Our understanding of the ballad has changed somewhat since Kittredges day (particularly with regards to his identification of the ballad as a literary form first, and only secondarily as song), but his definition is close enough to the modern one to serve as a jumping-off point for a lengthier attempt at characterizing the ballad form. The History of British Popular BalladsThe Origin of British Popular Ballads and Its Early Forms:Ballads are anonymous narrative songs sung that have been preserved by oral transmission. The word “ballad” comes from Latin and it meant to “dance”, but it changed its meaning in Provenal. The Provenal word balada has the same meaning of the Spanish word “romance”: a narrated story. In fact, ballads were recited or sung and rarely accompanied by instruments. Most of the the story were tragic, so that ballads were composed to make people dance. But were the ballads be sung in the England and Scotland of the fifteenth (or even fourteenth) century? Its possible, but its hard to prove. The popular metrical romances of the day, such as The Marriage of Sir Gawain, have marked resemblance to ballads, but it is not clear that they existed as popular song, as opposed to the repertoire of minstrels. There is some evidence that the Child ballads that do date to this time were being recited - possibly to some musical accompaniment - rather than sung. Consider the Robin Hood ballads, for instance. There are thirty-eight in Childs collection , but we possess almost no music for them, and that little is from the eighteenth century or later. Our oldest reference to these ballads is in Piers Plowman, in the late fourteenth century, where they are referred to as rymes of Robyn Hood. One of the earliest surviving rymes, - Robin Hood and the Monk , from about 1450 AD - refers to itself as a talking, rather than a song, which makes it plausible that, at least originally, it was meant to be spoken. The last verse of Robin Hood and the Monk isThus endys the talkyng of the munkeAnd Robyn Hode i-wysse;God, that is euer a crowned kyng,Bryng us al to his blisse!Once the ballad form became popular, it began to borrow freely from the carols, riddle songs, popular stories, and romances of this time. There is no doubt that many of our ballads have elements that can be traced back to the fourteen-hundreds, or earlier. There is no song we can point to, however, saying This ballad was being sung in the fifteenth century.The sixteenth century saw the gradual disappearance of the old-style romances, along with the minstrels who used to sing or recite them. Concurrently, increasing numbers of songs and ballads were being recorded, registered, and printed for sale. Ballads were popular throughout Europe. The Development and Flourished Period:The ballad form remained popular through the seventeenth and into the eighteenth century. And the ballads have established itself as a popular genre, and appeared in broadsides, books (eg, collections of Robin Hood ballads, known as garlands), and plays (eg, ballad operas, which were plays in which the actors would periodically break into song for little reason or none - as they have tended to do in musical productions ever since). Popular ballad tunes also become easier to locate, as they tended to appear in music collections, dance manuals, song books, instrumental instruction manuals, and broadsides. The eighteenth century there has two major ballad revivals. And that made ballads became flourished and popular. One came in mid-century, and was marked by Bishop Thomas Percy. He is an English antiquarian and bishop and His collection of ballads, Reliques of Ancient English Poetry published ballads awakened widespread interest in English and Scottish traditional ballads and songs. The basis of Percys collection was a tattered 15th-century manuscript of ballads (1765); His three small volumes included old ballads and romances from England and Scotland. And at the end of the century, through the efforts of Sir Walter Scott and his circle.they go to the living sourceof the ballads and to set them down on paper at the dictation of the border people among whom the old songs were still being sung. The themems of the English-Scottish popular ballads are of a great variety. there are romantic stories of love and friendship, of treachery and murderand most magical and supernatural ballad themes also tend to enter ballads at this time. though most of the popular ballads were originally composed by the common people, they not in frequently reflect the thoughts and feeling of the upper classes because they are products of the fedal age. many of its ballads are based on historical orlegendary material.among these there is a well-known group of the so-called border ballads: that deal with the bloody has to do with the tish border. The other came at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Lyrical Ballads publish by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1815 became a landmark of Romanticism, attested to the importance of Percys work to British Romanticism and arose as a main literary trend, prevailed in England. Disappearance of the BalladsThe flourish of the ballads lasts over a century, and then came down in the late nineteenth century. It is because at that time people interests are removed from poem, ballads, and song to the newly developed form , such as drama, novel and prose. At this time the literature in Britain reach the peak in the history. Conclusion: Every few decades the ballad seems to undergo a revival, with old books and manuscripts being searched for old ballads and new inspiration. Popular ballad, on the one hand, is a genre of oral literature, and on the other hand, represents a phenomenon of social public opinions. The historical development in ancient Briton has shown that popular ballad reflected some popular sentiments and the public opinion, signifying very widespread public opinion and even forecasting a general tendency in the political shift. Under the current social circumstances, the public opinion can relatively enjoy freedom, but meanwhile, the conflict between the new and the conventional systems by the reform has brought many new social problems. Thus the publics emotions including confusions, misunderstanding, puzzlements and even indignations towards many social phenomena can be expressed in the form of popular ballad, which is, though, one-sided, irrational and extreme in understanding the society, but represents some popular ideology and embodies the political voice of the public. The popular ballad expresses a certain implied truth of the society with irony, ridicule and negation and contains serious political reflections of the public. The immediate and direct response to the social and cultural phenomena bears a clear and sharp critical awareness. Various models of the popular ballad including mimicry, subversion, contrast and caricature, contain revelry of popular culture, and so it becomes one of the rare highlights in popular culture. Typical Characteristics of British Popular Ballads3.1 Simple Language Some ballads, especially older traditional ballads, were composed for audiences of non-specialist hearers or (later) readers. Therefore, they feature language that people can understand without specialist training or repeated readings. When later poets choose to write ballads, regardless of their intended audience, the choice of the ballad form generally implies a similar emphasis on simple language. it has a simple metrical structure and sentence structure as the following examples show:By far the most common balladic stanza form consists of four lines, with either four stresses per line, as in The Twa CorbiesAs I was walking all alaneI heard twa corbies making mane,The tane unto the tither sayWhare sall we gang and dine the day?or four stresses alternating with three stresses as in Sir Patrick Spens The king sat in Dunfermline townDrinking the bluid-reid wine;Oh where sall I get a sailor boldTo sail this ship o mine?Indeed, the latter is sometimes referred to as the ballad stanza or ballad measure. When the logic of the language calls for a three-line stanza, but the ballad form requires four, we often get a weak second line that fills out the count without actually saying anything. For example, The Bold Pedlar and Robin Hood begins:There chanced to be a pedlar bold,A pedlar bold there chanced to be,He put his pack upon his backAnd so merrily trudged oer the lee.and Queen Eleanors Confession begins:Queen Eleanor was a sick woman,And sick just like to die;And she has sent for two friars of FranceTo come to her speedily.The other common variation is the four-line stanza that is achieved by adding two lines of refrain to what would otherwise be a couplet, as in The Cruel MotherOh, children dear, if you were mineOh the rose and the lindsey-oId dress you up in silks so fineDown by the greenwood side-e-o.The simple verse form, strongly reinforced by the logic of the melody, has a tremendous influence on how the story is told. Speech and actions are typically structured in units of a half or full stanza, and this has a powerful tendency to keep the narrative lean. When things are happening in units of two or four short lines, there isnt much room for convoluted sentences, subordinate clauses, nested conditionals, or long descriptions. Rather, the form enforces simple sentences and descriptions, short story units, and short speech units. A single speech, in particular, will rarely carry over multiple stanzas.The simple and ubiquitous metrical structure also means that phrases, formulae, and even entire stanzas from one ballad can be borrowed by many other ballads. (A formula is a stock wording that tends to migrate from ballad to ballad as a unit. For instance, the formula Oh saddle to me my milk-white steed/Saddle to me my pony, crops up in numerous unrelated ballads.) Similarly, the standard scansion means that a given ballad can be sung to the tunes of a thousand other ballads. 3.2 StoriesBallads tend to be narrative poems, poems that tell stories, or a piece of stories. as opposed to lyric poems, which emphasize the emotions of the speaker. Traditional ballads tell a story, story on everything, through a ballad you could know the whole matter with a beginning, a process and a result. But some sort of songs we thought it is a ballads actually could not tell a story, and with development of lyrical ballads, the main characteristic of the traditional ballads begin to change, it is no longer a story telling form but contain description of natural, the feeling of author .etc. so whether the characteristic of ballads tell a story is really depend on, the traditional ballads s standard is different from the lyrical ones.ballads are narrative poems, not lyrical. therefore,the Lyrical Ballads was an oxymoron; it announced that the authors had experimented with combining the ballad form with lyric poetry, which describes the thoughts and emotions of the speaker.3.3 Ballad Stanzas The basic form for ballads is iambic heptameter (seven sets of unstressed, stressed syllables per line), in sets of four, with the second and fourth lines rhyming. This is the standard, Here is an example: Ill tell a tale, a thrilling tale of love beyond compareI knew a lad not long ago more gorgeous than any Ive seen.And in his eyes I found my self afalling in love with the swain.Oh, the glorious fellow I met by the ocean with eyes of deep-sea green!He was a rugged sailor man with eyes of deep-sea green,And I a maid, a tavern maid! Whose living was serving beer.So with a kiss and with a wave, off on his boat he sailedAnd left me on the dock, the theif! Without my heart, oh dear!And with a heart thats lost at sea, I go on living still.I still am now still serving beer in that tavern by the sea.And though the pay checks still the same, the money wont go as farFor now I feed not just myself, but my little one and me!So let that be a lesson, dear, and keep your heart safely hid.I gave mine to a sailing thief with gorgeous eyes of green.Save yours for a sweeter lad who makes the land his home.Ah me! If only Id never met that sailor by the sea!- Lonnie AdriftNotice how seen and green in the first paragraph rhyme? This rhyming pattern, called abcb, is continued throughout the poem. a stands for one line ending, b for another, and c for another still. Because there are 2 b s, they are the two lines that rhyme3.4 Dialogue As we might expect in a narrative genre, ballads often incorporate multiple characters into their stories. Often, since changes of voice were communicated orally, written transcriptions of oral ballads give little or no indication that the speaker has changed. The emphasis is on action and dialogue, not description. It tend to cut to the heart of a story: This is what happened. This is who was there. This is what they did. This is what they said. Often the entire story is pared down to a dialogue, as in Lord Randall Oh where ha you been, Lord Randal my son?And where ha you been, my handsome young man?I ha been at the greenwood; mother, mak my bed soon,For Im wearied wi hunting, and fain wad lie down.or in EdwardHow came this blood on your shirt sleeve,O dear love, tell me, me, me?It is the blood of my old gray houndThat traced the fox for me.where we leap past the (implicit) action to its aftermath. (Both are question-and-answer exchanges between the protagonist and his mother. In neither case do we see the murder being done; we only find out about it from the dialogue.) Not much attention is paid to what the characters are wearing, how lovely the trees are, or what a broken heart feels like. no description is found, all the author do is to state what happened.3.5 Third-person Objective Narration.Ballad narrators usually do not speak in the first person (unless speaking as a character in the story), and they often do not comment on their reactions to the emotional content of the ballad is not personally touched by story, and is not taking sides, and typically sings without much dramatization. Ballads tend to be characterized by impersonality on the part of the singer, let us consider the examples below:Barbara Allen: She rejects him. He dies of a broken heart. She dies of a broken heart.The writer isnt about to exclaim How could she! instead the judgment comes from within the tale. Contents of a Ballads and Outlaws Robin Hoodsthere are various kinds of ballads: a love triangle, a killing, an elopement, a haunting, a long-lost lover returned, a sea battle, a land battle, a rejected wooer grieving, a villain outwitted, a husband won, a monster defeated, or any of a hundred others.Usually,