Ballad

A ballad is a poem or song that tells a story in short stanzas, traditionally four lines with the second and fourth rhyming, using plain language, repetition and sudden action.

An old Scottish ballad opens: "The king sits in Dumferling toune, / Drinking the blude-reid wine". Four words in and the scene is set, a king drinking at ease, and something is about to disturb him. That speed is the form's signature.

What a ballad does

• Starts in the middle. There is no preamble. The poem drops the listener into a moment.
• Tells it with dialogue and action. Feelings are shown through what people say and do, with little comment from the narrator.
• Repeats. Lines, phrases and sometimes whole stanzas return, partly because ballads were sung and the audience needed something to hold onto. A returning line is a refrain.
• Leaps. The story skips the dull parts and jumps between key moments, leaving the listener to fill the gaps.

The ballad stanza is a quatrain with a rhyme scheme of ABCB.

Why it matters to a writer or editor

A ballad is storytelling pared to the bone. For a prose writer it shows how much a reader will accept if the story moves: you can cut transitions, trust a gap and let an image carry a scene. The skipped middle of a ballad is the same skill as a good scene cut.

For an editor, the question is pace. A ballad that stops to describe loses its drive. Check that every stanza moves the story forward, and keep the plain diction, since ornate language fights the form. Longer narrative traditions are covered under epic poem.

Read an example

Read an example: Edgar Allan Poe's "Annabel Lee" (1849), a story told in a song-like rhythm and often called a ballad.

Frequently asked questions

What is the usual stanza of a ballad?

The ballad stanza is a quatrain that alternates four-beat and three-beat lines and rhymes on the second and fourth lines, giving the pattern ABCB.

What is the difference between a folk ballad and a literary ballad?

A folk ballad grows out of oral tradition and has no known author. A literary ballad is written by a poet imitating the form, as Coleridge did in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

What do ballads usually talk about?

Love, death, betrayal, the supernatural and disaster. They favour dramatic events told in a few strokes.