Medieval_Lyrics_And_Ballads

Medieval Lyrics And Ballads Recently, the term ‘ballad’ can be associated with everything from Solomon’s Song to an Aerosmith song. The dictionary defines it as a traditional story in song or a simple song. However, the medieval ballad is something of a different nature than that of the popular musical ballads of today. The definition of ballad in the medieval context is a narrative poem. The authors usually remain anonymous and the ballad is more often than not accompanied by dance (Gummere). This is not surprising considering the word ‘ballad’ comes from the Latin word ‘ballare,’ meaning ‘to dance’ (Dixon). Almost all ballads follow the same distinct criteria. They are all performed by a minstrel or troubadour complemented by music and are normally performed for an audience. All ballads tell a story with major themes of revenge, envy, betrayal, loyalty, and superstition, although they may touch on other subjects. These stories only focus on one major event and can be about the dramatic events of heroes or every day people. Though the bulk of the stories begin in the middle of an event, there is very little background information given (Knight). Characters rarely show ballads, lyrics, ballad, very, stories, mary, story, medieval, dixon, traditional, one, often, popular, child, about, jesus, different, though, song, present, people, over, outlaw, events, death, written, types, told, style, robin, plain, performed, much, literary, judas