Medieval Ballads

1
Medieval Ballads its Intensity and Blank Spaces
for Imagination

• Sir Patrick Spence, Edward
• Barbara Allen in different versions

2
Ballads Definition Origin

• Definition a narrative song.
• Origins
• Usually in primitive societies such as that of
  American frontier in the 18th and 19th centuries
  and that of the English-Scottish border region in
  the later Middle Ages.
• Revised and passed down orally during the 500
  period from 1200 to 1700
• One of the first recorded versions in 18th
  century Thomas Percy Reliques of Ancient English
  Poetry
• Francis. J. Childs The English and Scottish
  Popular Ballads (1882)

3
Ballads Characteristics and Form

• Characteristics as an oral form of art
• Spareness of plot in media res (or even climaxes
  of the story), through monologue or dialogue, no
  narratorial comments (? how less suggests
  more)
• Use of repetition and refrain (? repetition with
  variation)
• Simplicity of tune and rhythm (four stresses in
  one line rhymes )
• One ballad stanza -- with four lines, alternating
  between tetrameter--four iambic beats (da-DUM,
  da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM), and trimeter--three
  beats (da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM) per line. (source)
  ? variation
• Archetypal symbols e.g. green/yellow leaves, sea,
  etc.

4
Ballads Kinds

• Historical Sir Patrick Spens
• Outlaw Robin Hood
• Romantic Barbara Allen
• Supernatural --? ? Ancient Mariner
• Tragic Edward
• Ref http//www.skell.org/explore/balladsF.htm

5
Ballads Influences on the 19th-century poetry

• Some 19th-c poems in Ballad form
• William Blake's "The Tyger (six quatrains in
  rhymed couplets. Trochee--hammering beat forging
  the tiger in the smithy. 7 or 8 syllables each
  line)
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient
  Mariner (sometimes 6 lines, sometimes with
  internal rhymes)
• John Keats's "La Belle Dame Sans Merci."

6
Sir Patrick Spens

• Possible Historical Connections
• In 1281, Scottish King Alexander III's daughter
  Margaret was married to Norway's King Eric, but
  on her voyage home, the ship sank and all
  perished. (see another version)
• Eric and Margaret were survived by a daughter,
  also named Margaret. She was to be married to a
  son of England's King Edward I, but died while
  sailing from Norway.
• a famous shipwreck off the coast of Aberdour near
  Papa Stronsay Island, which claims to be the
  burial place of Sir Patrick Spens.
• ? Dangerous journeys

7
Variation

• After the stanza on the Kings sending a letter.
  
• "To Noroway, to Noroway, To Noroway o'er the
  foam The King's daughter of Noroway, 'Tis thou
  must fetch her home."

8
Sir Patrick Spens--Questions

• Intensity (1) Contrast between Sir Patrick
  Spens, the King and the old knight?
• Intensity (2) Irony The knights suggestion
• "Sir Patrick Spens is the best sailor That ever
  sailed the sea."
• Intensity (3) Responses Sir Patrick Spenss
  response when getting the Kings order?
• The first line that Sir Patrick read, A loud
  laugh laughed he The next line that Sir Patrick
  read, The tear blinded his ee.
• Any impressive images? What lines are repeated
  to create some ironies or other effects?
• Spaces for Imagination Whats left untold

9
Sir Patrick Spens vs. the King and the Knight

• Sir Patrick Spenswalk on the sand the king
  sits and drinks the blood-red wine the old
  knight sits by the kings right knee
• Ironic contrast to Sir Patrick Spens with the
  sounds of s
• Sir Patrick Spenss response
• Laugha joke, ridiculous happy for being
  praised?
• Cry tears blind him, but he is not blind to his
  fate.
• Question suspects conspiracy
• Obedience make haste, make haste, my merry men
  all

10
Sir Patrick Spens vs. Fate

• Image -- the new moon with the old moon in her
  arm , the dark shape of the old moon and only
  the hint of a crescent of the new moon. ? an evil
  omen that predicts bad weather ? Rime of the
  Ancient Mariner
• He follows the order despite his awareness of
  death

11
Sir Patrick Spens vs. the Nobles and Ladies

• The trivial concerns of the Scots nobles and
  their immediate deaths (suggested by the wetting
  of their hats)? insignificance of lives
• The play? at the court? Or the trick of life?
  
• O laith, laith were our guid Scots lords,To weet
  their cork-heel'd shoonBut lang or a' the play
  was play'd,They wat their hats aboon.
• 2. The ladies well decorated, helpless.
• Repetition of lang, lang may the maidens
  sit/stand (inactive)
• With their gold combs in their hair and fans in
  their hands

12
Final Tribute Paid to Spens

• It's forty miles frae Aberdeen,And fifty fathoms
  deep,And there lies guid Sir Patrick Spence,Wi'
  the Sects lords at his feet!
• A contrast to the King, who has the old knight
  and his people at his feet.
• Repetition of the word guid

13
Spaces for Imagination Whats left untold

• The whole journey to death
• What actually happens in the ship
• how they fought against the storm.
• Burial, monument set for them, etc.
• The reasons for the trip.

14
Compared with ??lt????gt

• ????,????,????,????!
• Similarities noble death by nature and womens
  passive role.
• Use of repetition
• Sir Patrick Spens -- More reasons for his death
  are given more people set in contrast with
  Spens.

15
Barbara Allen Questions

• Contrast 1) Barbara vs. John vs. the others
• 2) Barabars responses at different moments
• A. story--
• 1) why Barbara Allen refuses to be kind to the
  dying young man slowly, slowly her
  matter-of-fact response to his death
• 2) the young mans response to Barbara Allens
  unkindness
• 3) the other peoples responses and the church
  bell
• 4) Barbara Allens final response laugh, or cry,
  or die
• 5) ending repentance or resolution and union
  (The red rose and the briar.)
• B. singing style
• C. narrative
• 1) how the story is toldby a narrator or not
• D. ballad/poetic elements the plot, symbol,
  repetition, contrast, rhyme and rhythm

16
Version (1) -- Childs 84B (song Dan
Tates)Bonny Barbara AllenHer Hard-Heartedness
and Repentance

• A story of a hard-hearted woman and a young man
  obsessed by love
• Young man-- Come pitty me, As on my death-bed I
  am lying.
• Bs response 1. Then little better shall he
  be/For bonny Barbara Allen.? So slowly slowly
  she got up.
• 2. I cannot keep you from your death So
  farewell,
• 3. on seeing the corpse laugh
• 4. repent For his death hath quite undone
  me.
• A hard-hearted creature that I was,/To slight
  one that lovd me so dearly I wish I had been
  more kinder to him,
• The time of his life when he was near me.
• Social Condemnation The bell and Her friends
  Unworthy Barbara Allen!

17
Version (2) (song Gilbert, Art Garfunkel) Irony
of Fate

• Barbara Allen
• -- cannot forget being slighted.
• -- Went to William by herself.
• 1. "Young man, I think you're dying." 
• Irony of fate Barbara Allen feeling slighted
• Young man--I toasted all the ladies there, /Gave
  my love to Barbara Allen." 
• -- sound effects feminine rhymes
• William ready to die -- He turned his pale face
  to the wall,/Be nice to Barbara Allen
• -- sound In this stanza, alliteration is used,
  with a "d" sound occurring in the words "death,"
  "dealing," "adieu," and "dear."  

18
Version (2) (song Gilbert, Art Garfunkel) Irony
of Fate

• Bs responses
• 2. feels guilty herself -- psychological
• And every toll they seemed to say,
  "Hard-hearted Barbara Allen." 
• 3. Actively searches for the coffin She looked
  east, she looked west,/She saw his corpse
  a-comin'.
• 4. Actively welcome death make me a bed long
  and narrow I'll die for him tomorrow

19
Version (3) (song Sarah Makem)stopped by her
parents

• Social pressures
• parents urge her to go (Get up, get up, her
  mother says,Get up and go and see him)
• later when she bursts out laughing, she is
  condemned by his weary friends.
• Reason the parents stopped her from going near
  him.
• Barbara Allen very stubborn and realistic One
  word from me you never will get,Nor any young man
  breathin',For the better of me you never will
  be,Though your heart's blood was a-spillin'.
• John die more dramatically. Bloody sheets and
  bloody shirtsI sweat them for you, Allen my gold
  watch and my gold chain I bestow them to you,
  Allen

20
Barbara Allen The Four Versions

• Social influences stronger in versions 1 3
  e.g.
• 1. the narrator, social condemnation of a cruel
  woman
• 2. the parents role, social condemnation of an
  obedient girl

• Fate and miscommunication
• Versions 2 4
• Common points
• setting in May,
• BA hard-hearted for different reasons.

21
Edward the breaking of kinship

• The dialogue between a mother and her son,
  Edward. --incremental repetition suspense
• Blood hawks? steeds (other versions dogs, my
  brother John) ? fathers
• To avoid penance ? he has to leave behind his
  property and his family (let them beg through
  life)
• Curses his mother, who suggests the idea of
  killing his father.
• The mothers intention in her questions to see
  if her goal is reached, to pretend innocence,
  etc..
• Oedipus complex?
• Music http//www.contemplator.com/child/edwrdbrl.
  html

22
Love Stories we have read so far

• 1. Love and Social Conditioning (esp. of women)
  (manners, class, place and money)
• A Rose for Emily AP Araby Pygmalion, The
  Glass Menagerie
• 2. Love, Courtship and Praising the Lady
• "To His Coy Mistress" The Flea the Courting
  Sonnet in Romeo and Juliet
• 3. Love, Poetry and Life/Mortality
• A Valediction Forbidding Mourning" That time of
  year thou mayst in me behold" Shall I compare
  thee to a summer's day
• 4. Love and Death
• My Last Duchess Porphyrias Lover
• Vs. "The Lady of Shalott" Song Barbara Allen