The ''ballade'' (; ; not to be confused with the
ballad
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 ...
) is a form of medieval and Renaissance French
poetry
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...
as well as the corresponding musical
chanson
A (, , french: chanson française, link=no, ; ) is generally any lyric-driven French song, though it most often refers to the secular polyphonic French songs of late medieval and Renaissance music. The genre had origins in the monophonic s ...
form. It was one of the three ''
formes fixes
The ''formes fixes'' (; singular: ''forme fixe'', "fixed form") are the three 14th- and 15th-century French poetic forms: the ''ballade'', '' rondeau'', and ''virelai''. Each was also a musical form, generally a ''chanson'', and all consisted of ...
'' (the other two were the
rondeau and the
virelai
A ''virelai'' is a form of medieval French verse used often in poetry and music. It is one of the three ''formes fixes'' (the others were the ballade and the rondeau) and was one of the most common verse forms set to music in Europe from the lat ...
) and one of the verse forms in France most commonly set to music between the late 13th and the 15th centuries.
The formes fixes were standard forms in French-texted song of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The ballade is usually in three stanzas, each ending with a refrain (a repeated segment of text and music).
The ballade as a
verse
Verse may refer to:
Poetry
* Verse, an occasional synonym for poetry
* Verse, a metrical structure, a stanza
* Blank verse, a type of poetry having regular meter but no rhyme
* Free verse, a type of poetry written without the use of strict me ...
form typically consists of three eight-line
stanza
In poetry, a stanza (; from Italian language, Italian ''stanza'' , "room") is a group of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or Indentation (typesetting), indentation. Stanzas can have regular rhyme scheme, rhyme and ...
s, each with a consistent metre and a particular
rhyme scheme
A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhymes at the end of each line of a poem or song. It is usually referred to by using letters to indicate which lines rhyme; lines designated with the same letter all rhyme with each other.
An example of the ABAB rh ...
. The last line in the stanza is a refrain. The stanzas are often followed by a four-line concluding stanza (an ''
envoi
Envoi or envoy in poetry is used to describe:
* A short stanza at the end of a poem such as a ballad, used either to address an imagined or actual person or to comment on the preceding body of the poem.
* A dedicatory poem about sending the book o ...
'') usually addressed to a
prince
A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. Th ...
. The
rhyme scheme
A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhymes at the end of each line of a poem or song. It is usually referred to by using letters to indicate which lines rhyme; lines designated with the same letter all rhyme with each other.
An example of the ABAB rh ...
is therefore usually , where the capital "C" is a refrain.
The many different rhyming words that are needed (the 'b' rhyme needs at least fourteen words) makes the form more difficult for English than for French poets.
Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer (; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for ''The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He wa ...
wrote in the form. It was revived in the 19th century by English-language poets including
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti (12 May 1828 – 9 April 1882), generally known as Dante Gabriel Rossetti (), was an English poet, illustrator, painter, translator and member of the Rossetti family. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhoo ...
and
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Algernon Charles Swinburne (5 April 1837 – 10 April 1909) was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He wrote several novels and collections of poetry such as ''Poems and Ballads'', and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition ...
. Other notable English-language ballade writers are
Andrew Lang
Andrew Lang (31 March 1844 – 20 July 1912) was a Scottish poet, novelist, literary critic, and contributor to the field of anthropology. He is best known as a collector of folk and fairy tales. The Andrew Lang lectures at the University ...
, Hilaire Belloc and
G. K. Chesterton
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (29 May 1874 – 14 June 1936) was an English writer, philosopher, Christian apologist, and literary and art critic. He has been referred to as the "prince of paradox". Of his writing style, ''Time'' observed: "Wh ...
at Wikisource. A humorous example is
Wendy Cope
Wendy Cope (born 21 July 1945) is a contemporary English poet. She read history at St Hilda's College, Oxford. She now lives in Ely, Cambridgeshire, with her husband, the poet Lachlan Mackinnon.
Biography
Cope was born in Erith in Kent (n ...
's 'Proverbial Ballade'.
Musical form
![Machaut Honte Paour](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/Machaut_Honte_Paour.svg)
The musical form of a ballade stanza is a
bar form
Bar form (German: ''die Barform'' or ''der Bar'') is a musical form of the pattern AAB.
Original use
The term comes from the rigorous terminology of the Meistersinger guilds of the 15th to 18th century who used it to refer to their songs and the ...
(AAB), with a first, repeated musical section (''stollen'') setting the two initial pairs of verses (rhymes "ab–ab"), and the second section (''abgesang'') setting the remaining lines including the refrain verse ("bcbC"). The two statements of the "A" section often have different endings, known as "ouvert" and "clos" respectively, with the harmony of the "ouvert" ending leading back to the beginning and that of the "clos" ending leading forward into the "B" section. In many ballades, the final part of the "B" section may reintroduce melodic material referring back to the end of the "A" part, a feature known as "musical rhyme" (or, in German, ''Rücklaufballade''). An alternative form employed by Machaut, known as ''ballade duplex'' or ''balladelle'', has the B part also divided into two repetitions, with the refrain line sung as part of the repetition.
A famous exception to the normal form is "Se la face ay pale" by
Guillaume Dufay
Guillaume Du Fay ( , ; also Dufay, Du Fayt; 5 August 1397(?) – 27 November 1474) was a French composer and music theorist of the early Renaissance. Considered the leading European composer of his time, his music was widely performed and repr ...
, where the entire stanza is through-composed, i.e. without a repetition between the two "A" sections.
Notable writers of ballades
Guillaume de Machaut
Guillaume de Machaut (, ; also Machau and Machault; – April 1377) was a French composer and poet who was the central figure of the style in late medieval music. His dominance of the genre is such that modern musicologists use his death to ...
wrote
42 ballades set to music. A few of them set two or even three poems to music simultaneously, with different texts sung in different voices. Most of the others have a single texted voice with either one or two untexted (instrumental) accompanying voices. One of the most notable writers of ballades in the 15th century was
François Villon
François Villon (Modern French: , ; – after 1463) is the best known French poet of the Late Middle Ages. He was involved in criminal behavior and had multiple encounters with law enforcement authorities. Villon wrote about some of these ex ...
.
Variations
There are many easy-to-identify variations to the ballade; it is in many ways similar to the
ode
An ode (from grc, ᾠδή, ōdḗ) is a type of lyric poetry. Odes are elaborately structured poems praising or glorifying an event or individual, describing nature intellectually as well as emotionally. A classic ode is structured in three majo ...
and
chant royal The Chant Royal is a poetic form that is a variation of the ballad form and consists of five eleven-line stanzas with a rhyme scheme and a five-line envoi rhyming or a seven-line envoi (capital letters indicate lines repeated verbatim). To add to ...
. Some ballades have five stanzas. A seven-line ballade, or
ballade royal
Rhyme royal (or rime royal) is a rhyming stanza form that was introduced to English poetry by Geoffrey Chaucer. The form enjoyed significant success in the fifteenth century and into the sixteenth century. It has had a more subdued but continuing ...
, consists of four stanzas of
rhyme royal
Rhyme royal (or rime royal) is a rhyming stanza form that was introduced to English poetry by Geoffrey Chaucer. The form enjoyed significant success in the fifteenth century and into the sixteenth century. It has had a more subdued but continuing ...
, all using the same three rhymes, all ending in a refrain, without an
envoi
Envoi or envoy in poetry is used to describe:
* A short stanza at the end of a poem such as a ballad, used either to address an imagined or actual person or to comment on the preceding body of the poem.
* A dedicatory poem about sending the book o ...
.
A ballade supreme has ten-line
stanza
In poetry, a stanza (; from Italian language, Italian ''stanza'' , "room") is a group of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or Indentation (typesetting), indentation. Stanzas can have regular rhyme scheme, rhyme and ...
s rhyming , with the envoi . An example is ''
Ballade des Pendus
The ''Ballade des pendus'', literally "ballad of the hanged", also known as ''Epitaphe Villon'' or ''Frères humains'', is the best-known poem by François Villon. It is commonly acknowledged, although not clearly established, that Villon wrote it ...
'' by
François Villon
François Villon (Modern French: , ; – after 1463) is the best known French poet of the Late Middle Ages. He was involved in criminal behavior and had multiple encounters with law enforcement authorities. Villon wrote about some of these ex ...
. There are also instances of a double ballade and double-refrain ballade.
References
Further reading
*
*
{{Western medieval lyric forms
Medieval music genres
Western medieval lyric forms
French poetry