ballade
American Heritage Dictionary:
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bal·lade
(bə-läd', bă-) 
n.
n.
- A verse form usually consisting of three stanzas of eight or ten lines each along with a brief envoy, with all three stanzas and the envoy ending in the same one-line refrain.
- Music. A composition, usually for the piano, having the romantic or dramatic quality of a narrative poem.
[Middle English balade. See ballad.]
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ballade
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia:
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ballade
One of several formes fixes in French lyric poetry and song, cultivated particularly in the 14th15th centuries. It consists of three main stanzas having the same rhyme scheme plus a shortened final dedicatory stanza; all four stanzas have identical final refrain lines. The texts were often solemn and formal, containing elaborate symbolism and classical references. Though present in the poetry of many ages and regions, the ballade in its purest form was found only in France and England. Its precursors can be found in the songs of the troubadours and trouvres.
For more information on ballade, visit Britannica.com.
Oxford Grove Music Encyclopedia:
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Ballade
(1) One of the three fixed forms, together with the rondeau and the virelai, which dominated French song and poetry in the 14th and 15th centuries. It originated as a song for dancing, but the fully developed ballade consists of a poem of three stanzas with the same metre, rhyme scheme and concluding refrain. The music for each stanza follows the pattern I-I-II.
(2) Term, first used by Chopin, for a piano piece in a narrative style or, later, for a piece of orchestral programme music.
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ballade
Columbia Encyclopedia:
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ballade
ballade (bəläd'), in literature, verse form developed in France in the 14th and 15th cent. The ballade usually contains three stanzas of eight lines with three rhymes and a four-line envoy (a short, concluding stanza). Also popular was the ten-line stanza with four rhymes and a five-line envoy. The envoy is used primarily as a summary or as a dedication or direct address to an important person. Ballades of Charles d'Orléans, François Villon, and Geoffrey Chaucer are well known.
Poetry Glossary:
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Ballade
Frequently represented in French poetry, a fixed form consisting of three seven or eight-line stanzas using no more than three recurrent rhymes with an identical refrain after each stanza and a closing envoi repeating the rhymes of the last four lines of the stanza. A variation containing six stanzas is called a double ballade.
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categories related to 'ballade'
- Types of Music and Composition - ballade: piano composition in romantic mood suggesting epic ballad
Wikipedia on Answers.com:
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Ballade
This article is about the poetry form. For other types of ballades and ballads, see Ballade (disambiguation).
The ballade (
/bəˈlɑːd/; not to be confused with the ballad) is a form of French poetry. It was one of the three formes fixes (the other two were the Rondeau and the virelai) and one of the verse forms in France most commonly set to music between the late 13th and the 15th centuries.
The ballade is a verse form typically consisting of three eight-line stanzas, each with a consistent metre and a particular rhyme scheme. The last line in the stanza is a refrain. The stanzas are followed by a four-line concluding stanza (an envoi) usually addressed to a prince. The rhyme scheme is therefore usually 'ababbcbC ababbcbC ababbcbC bcbC', 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 wrote in the form. It was revived in the 19th century by English-language poets including Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Algernon Charles Swinburne. Other notable English-language ballade writers are Andrew Lang and G. K. Chesterton (below). A humorous example is Wendy Cope's 'Proverbial Ballade'.
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Notable writers of ballades
One of the most notable writers of ballades was François Villon.
Casual ballades
In Edmund Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac, it is a ballade that Cyrano composes impromptu during a duel.
Examples
A Ballade of Theatricals by G. K. Chesterton (1912)
Though all the critics' canons grow—
Far seedier than the actors' own—
Although the cottage-door's too low—
Although the fairy's twenty stone—
Although, just like the telephone,
She comes by wire and not by wings,
Though all the mechanism's known—
Believe me, there are real things.
Yes, real people— even so—
Even in a theatre, truth is known,
Though the agnostic will not know,
And though the gnostic will not own,
There is a thing called skin and bone,
And many a man that struts and sings
Has been as stony-broke as stone…
Believe me, there are real things
There is an hour when all men go;
An hour when man is all alone.
When idle minstrels in a row
Went down with all the bugles blown—
When brass and hymn and drum went down,
Down in death's throat with thunderings—
Ah, though the unreal things have grown,
Believe me, there are real things.
Prince, though your hair is not your own
And half your face held on by strings,
And if you sat, you'd smash your throne—
Believe me, there are real things.
Variations
There are many easy-to-identify variations to the ballade. It is in many ways similar to the ode and chant royal.
Some ballades have five stanzas.
A seven-line ballade, or ballade royal, consists of four stanzas of rhyme royal, all using the same three rhymes, all ending in a refrain, without an envoi.
A ballade supreme has ten-line stanzas rhyming ababbccdcD, with the envoi ccdcD or ccdccD. An example is Ballade des Pendus by François Villon.
There are instances of a double ballade and double-refrain ballade.
External links
- 'Ballads in Blue China and Verses and Translations' by Andrew Lang from Fullbooks.Com
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Ballade". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
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American Heritage Dictionary
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
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Oxford Grove Music Encyclopedia
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Mentioned in
Edward
(music)
Formes fixes
(music)
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(Classical Work)
Honte, paour, doubtance, ballade for 3 voices
(Classical Work)
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