Ballad Essays

than a glimpse at how it was preserved in verse. Medieval ballads are a specific branch of the folk song genre. As the name states, it origins in the medieval times, most likely during the high middle ages, around the late 13th, or the early 14th century. The songs and styles cover a number of topics and the most common themes such as: event/location, love, murder, hard trouble, hero/villain, work, and paranormal. Thousands of folk ballads have been recorded through the efforts of folk literature;

character. “The Ballad of Rudolph Reed” again piles the form to tell a story with a strong moral or social theme. For the first time, however, the regular stanza serves the heroic concept, as it did partially in the previous poem. Rudolph Reed takes nihilistic action. While political solidarity compels social change, the latter ultimately rests upon the conscience of one who, as Herman Melville observed of Nathaniel Hawthorne, can say “No! in thunder.” The poem comprises sixteen ballad stanzas in

Gwendolyn Brooks, a world renowned poet, made it her life’s purpose to create changes in the lives of others. “Born June 7, 1917, in Topeka, Kansas” (Contemporary Authors Online 1) her family moved to Chicago when she was very young. Growing up on the south side, Brooks saw the daily struggles that blacks faced. There was a lot of racial tension building, as many more blacks pushed back against oppression. Brooks was, “Deeply involved with black life, black pain and black spirits” (Lee 2). Throughout

The Child Ballad No. 35, “Allison Gross,” in contrast, fairly differs from both ballads I have discussed so far. Whereas “The Marriage of Sir Gawain” and “Kemp Owyne” are, much like most fairy tales, named after the heroes of the ballad, the name “Allison Gross” comes from the story 's villain: the evil witch. Besides, this ballad does not treat of a stepmother 's relationship to and behavior towards their stepchildren, but rather broaches the issue of “[t]he ugliest witch i’ the north country” (“Allison

“Jabberwocky” is a ballad that tells about a heroic quest. Ballads are originally intended to be sung, but “Jabberwocky” is considered a literary ballad, which is meant to be read. True ballads have the third, fifth, and sixth stanzas follow the rhyme form of abca, and the syllable pattern of eight, six, eight, six. The remaining stanzas follow the rhyme

For example the ballad “Tis Not Otherwise, the Praise of Married Life (Exercise 14.1 Allen, G. online), reinforces the role of the patriarchal male and how a man would benefit by taking a wife. This ballad is one of 7,859 17th century ballads held on “The English Broadside Ballad Database” (no date), This database shows the extent of topics sung about and a range of genres include political, religious and seditious songs. The number and variety of topics of ballads and their circulation suggests

Groundling, where fore art thou groundling. In the epitaph, “My Love for You Is So Embarrassingly” by Todd Boss, the speaker is stuck in an internal ponder between his head and his heart. The title alone emphasizes how grand his love is for the auditor. Then, as the poem progresses he makes a point to show how devotion is taken for granted. This poem differs from your traditional love poem because the speaker challenges his feelings. He is essentially questioning love’s worth because of the other

Is love always a positive influence? The poems “A Love Song” by William Williams and “Love’s Philosophy” by Percy Shelley both discuss love. “A Love Song” is full of negative imagery, and suggests that love changes how one sees the world for the worse. In contrast the poem “Love’s Philosophy” uses positive diction and beautiful imagery to convey the idea that love is something to be desired by all. Both authors convey these themes using the literary devices of diction, imagery, and tone. Both Williams

Greed within the Rape of the Lock Greed is often perceived as wanting to have something no matter who it affects. The Augustan time period was riddled with greed and was not a great time period to live in. A poet named Alexander Pope wrote a poem to push the issue of greed to the spotlight. In his poem, The Rape of the Lock, Pope uses one of the main characters, the Baron,to prove the true greed the courses through the veins of the average human. The Baron’s rudeness, persistence, and

The Harlem Renaissance is a beautiful and exciting period of American Literature. Throughout class this semester we have talked about America’s literary identity crisis during and after the civil war. We have seen authors struggle with the questions of who are we and what should American literature look and sound like? As we step forward in to the Harlem Renaissance a new group of authors and artist emerge who know exactly who they are and what they have to say about life in America. “America” by

Part Two: Poetic Devices Poetic devices are used extensively in Demi Lovato’s song “Skyscraper.” In this song, Lovato uses personification to show her depressed feeling. For example “Skies are crying, I am watching” (line 1). Since skies don’t actually cry, this indicates that an inanimate object like skies is given a human characteristic like crying, however, this shows that Lovato is referring to rain as crying since rain represents an emotion of sadness, which explains her depressed mood, and

Barbie is not a Doll For quite a long time, an innocent Barbie doll is attacked by a plenty of controversies. Why a child’s toy must sustain these criticisms about feminism, racialism, and nationalism? Apparently, Barbie has been regarded as a man rather than as a doll since she is three-dimensional pinup and has unrealistic and enviable women’s appearance as well as she possesses gorgeous clothes and all kinds of wealthy identity, which make Barbie become a wicked existence. Seemly it could bring

Ballad of Birmingham The Ballad of Birmingham was written by Dudley Randall in 1963. It was written after the bombing of a church on September 15, 1963 (16th Street Baptist Church Bombing). This bombing took place at a church in Birmingham, Alabama. The church was getting ready for their Sunday congregation. In the basement, five young girls were chatting in their best Sunday clothes (16th Street Baptist Church Bombing). The girls were filled with excitement. That Sunday was when the youth was going

In the 1960’s, the Civil Right movement was in full swing. Martin Luther King was holding rallies in Birmingham and other cities in the South. In 1963, the headlines across the nation state that six were dead in a Baptist Church in Birmingham. The “Ballad of Birmingham” is a tragic poem written in response to the bombing at the 16th Street Baptist Church, which is a meeting place for Civil Rights leaders. The poem describes an African-American mother and her daughter conversing about a "Freedom March"

A “Ballad of Birmingham” written by Dudley Randall is an extremely sad and touching story (Kirszner & Mandell, 2012, p. 378-379). This story embodies how love and loss with the tragedy of racism is in our world. We can see how hard it was for African Americans simply by how it is depicted by the mother's voice, dark tone, and the rhythm in this ballad which tries to soothe us as the story unfolds. The voice is of her mother can be felt with each line along with the hurt and pain. The strong sense

seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result. Example: “No, baby,no, you may not go/For I fear those guns will fire./But you may go to church instead/And sing in the children’s choir” (Lines 13-16) Randall “The Ballad of Birmingham” Function Context: Prior to this stanza, a mother’s daughter asks to join the Freedom March in Birmingham, but unfortunately, the mother rejects this request because she fears of the dangers of sending her child to a potentially violent

The “Ballad of Birmingham” was written in response to the bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. The author Dudley Randall, uses a mother and daughter to describe what might have occurred to someone involved in the bombing. The little girl wants to go downtown and participate in one of Birmingham's many freedom marches, but her mother refuses to allow the little girl to attend. Her mother thinks that it is an inappropriate place for a little girl to attend because

‘Ballad of Landlord’ lays an emphasis on the conflict with social injustice between people of different social level. Langston Hughes stresses the idea of unfair advantage given to people of higher ranks in society by subtly raising the idea of racial segregation between the blacks and whites. He develops a unique rhythm to represent the different stances between a Negro tenant and a white landlord through uses of dialogue, rhetorical question, and hyperbole. The poem opens up with a repeated structure

Ballad of a Soldier by Luis Valdez showed us the criteria of what qualifies as a Chicana/o film by showing the struggles a Chicana/o had to go through such as being deployed to war and how much stress it was involved with the their families and their doubt of him coming back to the barrio. We can also see how the life of Chicano/as were such as having parties, the way they dressed and the way they talked. We can also see how gender roles switched, such as Cecilia fixing the car and how she didn't

elements and themes can reveal so much more than what is gleaned from the first reading. I’ve chosen to examine tragedy because in my opinion, among the elements commonly found among ballads tragedy often has the most impact on the story. The two ballads I am examining—Edgar Allan Poe’s “Annabel Lee” and Dudley Randall’s “Ballad of Birmingham”—both exhibit tragedy as major turning points in their stories, but even within this one story element there is a surprising amount of variation in the nature of the