page_title: Ballad
section_title: Classification
hierarchical_section_title: Ballad / Classification
caption_attribution_description: English: "O Waken, Waken, Burd Isbel". Illustration to the ballad "Young Beckie", from the book Some British Ballads (1919) (link to digitized edition / page), illustrated by Arthur Rackham.
context_page_description: A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French chanson balladée or ballade, which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and song of Britain and Ireland from the later medieval period until the 19th century. They were widely used across Europe, and later in Australia, North Africa, North America and South America. Ballads are often 13 lines with an ABABBCBC form, consisting of couplets of rhymed verse, each of 14 syllables. Another common form is ABAB or ABCB repeated, in alternating 8 and 6 syllable lines.
  Many ballads were written and sold as single sheet broadsides. The form was often used by poets and composers from the 18th century onwards to produce lyrical ballads. In the later 19th century, the term took on the meaning of a slow form of popular love song and is often used for any love song, particularly the sentimental ballad of pop or rock music, although the term is also associated with the concept of a stylized storytelling song or poem, particularly when used as a title for other media such as a film.
context_section_description: European Ballads have been generally classified into three major groups: traditional, broadside and literary. In America a distinction is drawn between ballads that are versions of European, particularly British and Irish songs, and 'Native American ballads', developed without reference to earlier songs. A further development was the evolution of the blues ballad, which mixed the genre with Afro-American music. For the late 19th century the music publishing industry found a market for what are often termed sentimental ballads, and these are the origin of the modern use of the term 'ballad' to mean a slow love song.
caption: Illustration by Arthur Rackham to Young Bekie.
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image DateTime": "2019:12:11 14:15:55", "Image ExifOffset": "2142", "Image Padding": "[]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "96", "Thumbnail YResolution": "96", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "4360", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "16384", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "D5D52222C3DB46CBAD314BDE9A7DECA9", "EXIF Padding": "[]"}