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Literary Encyclopedia
Ballad
A simple
narrative poem, often of popular origin, composed in short
stanzas, especially one of romantic character and adapted for singing.
Stories are commonly about fatal relationships. Stanzas are
quatrains with 4 beats in lines I and 3, and 3 beats in lines 2 and 4, which also
rhyme.
In English ballads, the most common metre consists of
iambic lines of 7 accents, with a 2 line stanza. However, it is usually printed in 4 line stanzas, with lines 1 and 3,
tetrameters and lines 2 and 4,
trimeters, rhyming abcb.
See Also:
Bush Ballad; Folk Ballad.
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